Broker-Dealer Litigation - Greenberg Traurig LLP

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Mississippi Pub. Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Boston Scientific Corp., 649 F.3d 5 (1st Cir. 2011).
Plaintiffs, investors brought securities fraud class action against defendants, a coronary
stent manufacturer and its executives. The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss and
investor appealed. On appeal, the court reversed and remanded. On remand, the court granted
defendants’ motion for summary judgment and plaintiffs again appealed. On second appeal, the
court held that defendants did not act with the scienter required to establish securities fraud.
Specifically, the court found that defendants’ were not shown to be aware of a problem that
threatened the device’s viability. The court also reasoned that the defendants had no obligation
to disclose the fact that they were working on an improvement to the device to reduce
complaints.
Amorosa v. AOL Time Warner Inc., 2011 WL 310316 (2d Cir. Feb. 2, 2011).
Stockholder in company that was merged with another company brought action against
auditor for merging company and company surviving merger for alleged violations of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The court granted the auditor’s motion to dismiss holding that
stockholder failed to adequately allege loss causation linking the purportedly false and
misleading statements made by auditor in a “clean” audit opinion of financial statements and the
ruling was affirmed upon appeal. Specifically, the court found that plaintiff could not establish
any misstatement or opinion in the audit opinion that was revealed to the market directly
resulting in a diminution in the value of plaintiff’s securities.
Inter-Local Pension Fund GCC/IBT v. GE, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 19271 (2d Cir. 2011).
The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ securities law claims
reasoning that that plaintiffs failed to adequately plead the element of loss causation under the
heightened pleading requirements of the PSLRA. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants concealed its’
liquidity problems and plans to raise $15,000,000,000 in dilutive equity financing. The court
found that no loss occurred as a result of defendants’ announcement to offer new equity to
remedy its liquidity problems. The court held that Plaintiffs’ complaint did not adequately plead
that defendants concealed the pricing of the offering with requisite particularity.
GE Investor, v. General Electric Company, 2011 WL 5607137 (2d Cir. Nov. 18, 2011).
The court, in ruling on defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ securities law claims,
found that plaintiffs failed to satisfy the heightened pleading requirements under PSLRA and did
not adequately plead the element of loss causation. Plaintiffs’ alleged that defendants’ concealed
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