Broker-Dealer Litigation - Greenberg Traurig LLP

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Love v. Alfacell Corp., 2011 WL 4915874 (D.N.J. Oct. 17, 2011).
Plaintiff brought suit against defendants for violations of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and defendants moved to dismiss for failure to meet
the heightened pleading standards under the PSLRA. The court granted defendants’ motion
holding that plaintiff failed to specify whether many of the statements alleged in the complaint
were misleading or note the reasons why such statements were misleading. The court found the
other claims not to be material the would not alter the total mix of information available to a
reasonable investor.
Monk v. Johnson and Johnson, 2011 WL 6339824 (D.N.J. Dec. 19, 2011).
Plaintiff brought suit against certain former and current officers and directors of a
company and its wholly owned subsidiary, alleging that defendants misrepresented and omitted
material information about system quality control failures at the subsidiary’s over-the-counter
drug manufacturing plants. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to allege that each
defendant possessed the requisite scienter to commit securities fraud under the heightened
pleading standards of the PSLRA. The court held that plaintiff had sufficiently pled scienter with
respect to certain defendants but that the scienter allegations against other defendants were
insufficient and dismissed those defendants from the suit without prejudice. More specifically,
the court differentiated treatment of defendants based on a lack of specificity with which certain
actions and inactions of the company.
Barnard v. Verizon Communications, Inc., 2011 WL 294027 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 31, 2011).
Plaintiff shareholders brought suit against defendants alleging violations of federal
securities laws and defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim as required under the
heightened pleading requirements of the PSLRA. Plaintiff claimed their stock in a company was
rendered useless when the company went into bankruptcy. The plaintiff further alleged that the
bankruptcy was deliberately engineered several years ago when the company was divested and
spun off from another larger company as an intricate way to “unsaddle” debt from the larger
company’s balance sheet. The court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss finding that
plaintiffs failed to allege any specific misleading statements or omissions.
Steamfitters Local 449 Pension Fund v. Alter, 2011 WL 4528385 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 30, 2011).
Plaintiffs brought suit against various officers of a company alleging violations of federal
securities laws. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants had information about the true state of the
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