Why has the Supreme Court declined to hear cases that would clarify the PSLRA? Business Week has a “news analysis” on the Supreme Court’s reluctance to take cases in “vital areas such as antitrust, environmental, intellectual-property, securities, and tax law.” In particular, the article cites the varied application of the PSLRA’s heightened pleading standards as a “prime example of the legal confusion that the Supreme Court has allowed to fester.”
The article does not state how many cert petitions involving interpretations of the PSLRA the Supreme Court has rejected. That said, anecdotal evidence abounds. A recent example is the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the Baxter case, an appeal from a Seventh Circuit decision that created a circuit split over the PSLRA’s safe harbor for forward-looking statements.
The 10b-5 Daily 