Friday, September 05, 2014

Sneak Peek at Securities Cases to Be Heard by Supreme Court

[This story previously appeared in Securities Regulation Daily.]

Mark S. Nelson, a legal analyst in the Federal Securities Solutions group at Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, has published a video preview of the securities cases now pending in the Supreme Court. The preview builds on a recent webinar Nelson co-presented with Principal Analyst Jim Hamilton reviewing last year’s Supreme Court decisions for securities practitioners and looking ahead to the upcoming term.

The Supreme Court’s October 2014 term will begin in just over a month from today and already we can expect decisions in three securities cases. Two cases focus on different aspects of Securities Act Section 11: one case will examine the reach of so-called American Pipe tolling, while another case will look directly at the pleading requirements under this provision. A third case may fix the limits of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s anti-shredding provision.

Each of these cases involves questions of practical significance to securities lawyers and their clients. These cases also will likely require the Supreme Court to look carefully at earlier, sometimes ambiguous, opinions in order to reach a decision. Nelson’s video explains key aspects of each case and reviews precedents the court may find critical to answering these complex securities law questions.