The Sixth Circuit continues to be a source of interesting opinions regarding corporate scienter. In 2014, the court held in its Omnicare decision that only a limited set of corporate officers (including officers who had either made or approved the alleged misstatements) could have their state of mind imputed to the company. But what about lower corporate officers who know about undisclosed problems and fail to report them?
In Doshi v. General Cable Corp., 2016 WL 2991006 (6th Cir. 2016), the court addressed a case arising out of General Cable’s financial restatement, which was the result of a “complex theft scheme in Brazil and, to a somewhat lesser extent, accounting errors, primarily in Brazil.” The plaintiffs alleged that the head of the company’s “Rest of World” (ROW) division, which included Brazil, knew about these issues but failed to report them to the executive management. Moreover, the plaintiffs argued, his knowledge could be imputed to General Cable because he “furnished information used in General Cable’s false public financial statements.”
The court found that even if the head of the ROW division had acted recklessly, in the absence of any allegations that he had “drafted, reviewed, or approved” the alleged misstatements, “only his knowledge of the theft and accounting errors – not his state of mind – imputes to General Cable.” The court then applied its normal “scienter factors” to determine whether the plaintiffs had adequately plead that the company, with that knowledge, had acted with a fraudulent intent. Ultimately, the court found that the more compelling inference was that “a theft scheme racked General Cable’s operations in Brazil where local managers overrode accounting procedures, which, when coupled with the legitimate freedom afforded ROW to report its financial data, led General Cable to issue materially false public financial statements.” Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ allegations failed “to create a strong inference that General Cable acted with scienter.”
Holding: Dismissal affirmed.
The 10b-5 Daily 