If a securities fraud claim is based on the nondisclosure of an illegal act, what is the plaintiff required to plead about the existence of that act? In Gamm v. Sanderson Farms, Inc., 2019 WL 6704666 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2019), the plaintiffs alleged that Sanderson Farms, a poultry processing company, had failed to disclose an anti-competitive conspiracy to inflate the price of chicken by coordinating supply reductions and manipulating a chicken price index. After a series of antitrust complaints were filed against Sanderson Farms and other chicken producers, the company’s stock price fell.
The district court dismissed the complaint based on the plaintiffs’ failure to adequately plead the existence of “a chicken supply reduction conspiracy with particularized facts.” On appeal, the Second Circuit agreed. To support their contention that Sanderson Farms’ financial disclosures were rendered misleading by the failure to disclose the anti-competitive conduct, the plaintiffs were required “to have alleged the basic elements of an underlying antitrust conspiracy” with particularity. Those elements included “collusive conduct,” but the securities complaint provided “no facts alleging that Sanderson or its peers actually reduced supply, and that those reductions were the result of an agreement, or were even interrelated.” Accordingly, the complaint was deficient.
Holding: Dismissal affirmed.
Quote of note: “A stock-issuing company like Sanderson cannot be required, whenever accused of illegal activity, to simultaneously defend itself in an accompanying securities fraud suit based on facts not alleged with the level of particularity required by the statute [PSLRA]. Such a reality would harm the company’s stock and contravene the purpose of the securities laws – to protect shareholders’ interests.”
The 10b-5 Daily 