Behavioral economics (or, the application of empirical psychology to economics) has been around for more than a decade, and its teachings have begun to influence both policymaking and legal strategy. So it makes sense that at some point, someone would try to apply it to class action practice.
In her article "Behavioral…
Two years ago, I wrote about the difficulties defendants face when securities plaintiffs invoke confidential witnesses in their complaints. The case that prompted that discussion, City of Livonia Employee Retirement System v. Boeing Corp., now has a sequel. As it turns out, both parties appealed the opinion below: the plaintiffs because the court below…
Back in January, NERA Economic Consulting published yet another interesting paper, entitled Dynamic Litigation Analysis: Predicting Securities Class Action Settlements as a Case Evolves, by Dr. Ronald Miller.
Using the data NERA has collected on securities class actions over 20 years, Dr. Miller comes to some interesting conclusions about motions practice in securities…
Blue Coat Systems, Inc. was a web security firm that, in 2008, tried to break into the growing field of wide-area network optimization by acquiring a company called Packeteer, Inc. The move was supposed to secure long-term growth, but arguably had the opposite effect.
On May 27, 2010, Blue Coat issued some financial results and…
The Supreme Court has handed down its first class-action related opinion of the 2012-13 Term, Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans & Trust Funds. And while that opinion represents a loss for the defendants in the specific case, it’s not as big a problem for securities defendants in general.
Amgen involved an alleged securities…
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two different class actions, united by a common problem.
The first, Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, asked whether a trial court should hold plaintiffs to the Daubert standard for expert testimony at class certification, a question that has divided federal circuits for several years. Due in…
In 1998, the class action plaintiffs’ firm Milberg Weiss filed sued Computer Associates for violating the federal securities laws by lying about its revenues in order to increase its stock price. In a perfectly unremarkable development, it was appointed co-lead counsel of the consolidated class. (Various firms had filed a total of eleven complaints.) …
It turns out that Elizabeth Chamblee Burch is not the only law professor currently worried about adequacy in securities class actions. Boston University law professor David H. Webber has an article in the Northwestern University Law Review on The Plight of the Individual Investor in Securities Class Actions.
While Professor Burch was concerned with…
Georgia Professor Elizabeth Chamblee Burch has an essay out for the University of Cincinnati’s Corporate Law Symposium, in which she argues that institutional investors may have problems serving as adequate class representatives in securities class actions.
As she acknowledges, this is a counter-intuitive position, but that hardly makes it wrong. We have grown…
