Andrew Grossman reports on yesterday’s oral argument in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, which “may be the biggest business case of the term. …Basic [Basic v. Levinson, 1988, in which the Court dispensed with the reliance requirement in favor of the “fraud on the market” theory] came at the tail-end of the Court’s decades-long experiment in policymaking by creating and defining the contours of civil actions. … The chief barrier to overturning Basic may not be its logic, its wisdom, or even its correctness as a matter of law, but instead stare decisis.” Earlier here, here, here, and here.
More: Kaye Scholer (possible “midway position” with impact on stock price considered at stage of class certification).
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Shareholder class actions are nothing but high-class trip-and-fall suits: they’re opportunistic, grossly exaggerate harms, exact costs that far exceed any benefit conferred – assuming there is any benefit, and are pursued by the bottom-feeders of the legal profession. Limits on the enterprise would be welcome.