A recent Yale Law Journal article describes a “striking trend in the administration of civil justice in the United States”—“the virtual abandonment of the centuries-old institution of trial.” In recent times, only approximately 1% of federal civil cases end in jury trials. Deep-pocketed companies often settle before trial because they fear that jurors will sympathize with individual plaintiffs and that jurors may lack the patience and ability to weigh complicated evidence. This is especially true for financial institutions in the current public-relations climate. But our recent experience co-defending Goldman Sachs in a five-week jury trial demonstrates that corporate defendants need not avoid juries at all costs, especially where important principles are at stake and there is a strong belief that the claims are baseless.

…continue reading: Lessons from a Jury Trial

In a historic decision of immense consequence to foreign securities issuers, the Supreme Court of the United States this morning swept away four decades of lower-court case law and categorically rejected a highly vexatious species of class-action litigation that has plagued such issuers in recent years—“foreign-cubed” or “f-cubed” securities lawsuits, which involve claims of foreign investors against foreign issuers to recover losses from purchases on foreign securities exchanges. Addressing the territorial scope of the federal securities laws for the first time, the Court in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., No. 08-1191 (U.S. June 24, 2010), held that Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5 do not apply to transactions on foreign exchanges. The “focus” of the statute, the Court ruled, is “upon purchases and sales of securities in the United States”; as a result, the statute “reaches … only … the purchase or sale of a security listed on an American stock exchange, and the purchase or sale of any other security in the United States.” Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz successfully briefed and argued the case for National Australia Bank and the other defendants in the Supreme Court.

…continue reading: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects “Foreign Cubed” Class Actions