Securities
fraud is no joking matterSecurities
fraud is no joking matter
This article was written in February 2001, and examines three recent court decisions that drew inferences of scienter from CEO's humorous, hypothetical, or nonresponsive comments regarding accounting issues. The moral of the story is that securities law courts may give strict scrutiny to corporate speech.
Who
is responsible for financial fraud?
This article was written in August 2000 for the September 2000 edition of the PLI Securities Litigation seminar booklet, and has been updated for this web site. It focuses on a question that has rarely been asked: when is a company liable for a financial fraud? The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 makes it all the more important to plead and prove liability on a defendant-by-defendant basis.
This brief commentary was written in May 2000 and contends that assuming that language matters, there's a right way to refer to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
The
Pleading Standard Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995
This is the author's portion of an article originally published in the 1997 edition of the PLI Securities Litigation seminar booklet. The article is an early articulation of the author's exegesis of the pleading standards set forth by the Reform Act. The article provides an explanation of that pleading standard that is consistent with the legislative history of the Reform Act. In scientific terms, it "explains the outcomes" by showing how Congress adopted a pleading standard that both looked towards Second Circuit law, but was more stringent than some Second Circuit courts had articulated (i.e., courts holding that so-called "motive and opportunity" suffices).