The 10b-5 Daily

Will the next U.S. Supreme Court securities case be about the statute of limitations? It is a strong possibility, given that the Court has asked the Solicitor General to weigh in on the cert petition filed in a Ninth Circuit case.

At issue in Betz v. Trainer Wortham & Co., Inc., 519 F.3d 863 (9th Cir. 2008) is when the two-year statute of limitations for a securities fraud begins to run. It is well-settled that if an investor has sufficient knowledge concerning the possibility or probability of fraud (courts have differed on the exact wording), he is deemed to have “inquiry notice” and must begin an investigation into the underlying facts. There is a conflict between the circuits, however, on whether the statute of limitations begins to run when the investor is put on inquiry notice, or later when a reasonably diligent investigation would have revealed the fraud.

The Ninth Circuit went even further then the existing case law and held that inquiry notice is triggered not by mere evidence of a misrepresentation (as in other circuits), but only by evidence of the defendant’s fraudulent intent. It also adopted the more rigorous notice-plus-reasonable-diligence standard and found that even fairly mild reassurances from the defendant in response to a plaintiff’s inquiries may require a jury determination as to whether a reasonably diligent investigation would have revealed the fraud. In a vigorous dissent from the denial of en banc review, Judge Kozinski described the court as being “out in left field again” and argued that “the panel effectively writes the statute of limitations off the books.”

Stay tuned for whether the Court takes the case. In the interim, the amicus brief filed by the Organization for International Investment and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in support of a cert grant can be found here. Thanks to LawyerLinks for noting the Court’s invitation to the Solicitor General’s office to express the government’s views.

“Foreign-cubed” cases are actions brought against a foreign issuer, on behalf of a class that includes not only investors who purchased the securities in question on a U.S. securities exchange, but also foreign investors who purchased the securities on a foreign securities exchange. These cases raise a number of jurisdictional issues.

In Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 2008 WL 4660742 (2nd Cir. Oct. 23, 2008), the court considered whether it should exercise subject matter jurisdiction over the claims brought by the foreign purchasers of the bank’s ordinary shares (the lower court had dismissed the domestic purchasers’ claims on other grounds). The court declined to impose a “bright-line ban” on foreign purchaser claims, expressing concern that “securities cheaters . . . should not be given greater protection from American securities laws because they carry a foreign passport or victimize foreign shareholders.”

Instead, the court applied its existing “conduct test” for subject matter jurisdiction. Under the conduct test, the plaintiffs needed to adequately allege that “activities in this country were more than merely preparatory to a fraud and culpable acts or omissions occurring here directly caused losses to investors abroad.” The court found that this test was not met: “the fact that the fraudulent statements at issue emanated from NAB’s corporate headquarters in Australia, the complete lack of any effect on America or Americans, and the lengthy chain of causation between [the false numbers communicated to NAB by its U.S. subsidiary] and the statements that reached investors – add up to a determination that we lack subject matter jurisdiction.”

Holding: Dismissal affirmed (note that the Second Circuit did not address a related issue that was recently raised in a S.D.N.Y. case – whether the fraud-on-the-market theory is applicable to foreign purchasers).

Quote of note: “[W]e are leery of rigid bright-line rules because we cannot anticipate all the circumstances in which the ingenuity of those inclined to violate the securities laws should result in their being subject to American jurisdiction. That being said, we are an American court, not the world’s court, and we cannot and should not expend our resources resolving cases that do not affect Americans or involve fraud emanating from America. In our view, the ‘conduct test’ balances these competing concerns adequately and we decline to place any special limits beyond the ‘conduct test’ on ‘foreign-cubed’ securities fraud actions.”

The latest application of the Tellabs decision on the pleading of scienter (i.e., fraudulent intent) comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In Mizzaro v. Home Depot, Inc., 2008 WL 4498940 (11th Cir. Oct. 8, 2008), the court considered two controversial issues.

Confidential Witnesses – The court declined to embrace the Seventh Circuit’s position that statements by confidential witnesses should be “heavily discounted.” On the other hand, the court acknowledged that there were reasons to be “skeptical of confidential sources cited in securities fraud complaints,” including that there are no harsh consequences if a witness lies to a plaintiff’s attorney. The court concluded: “Confidentiality . . . should not eviscerate the weight given if the complaint otherwise fully describes the foundation of the confidential witness’s knowledge, including the position(s) held, the proximity to the offending conduct, and the relevant time frame.”

Collective Scienter – The court agreed with the Fifth Circuit’s position that a defendant corporation’s scienter is determined by looking “to the state of mind of the individual corporate official or officials who make or issue the statement . . . rather than generally to the collective knowledge of all the corporation’s officers and employees acquired in the course of their employment.” (For more on the circuit split over collective scienter, see this post.) The plaintiffs did “not argue that any Home Depot officials were responsible for the company’s financial statements other than the named individual defendants.” Accordingly, the court found that it “need not pursue this issue further.”

Holding: Dismissal affirmed.

Quote of note: “To begin with, we indulge at least some skepticism about allegations that hinge entirely on a theory that senior management ‘must have known’ everything that was happening in a company as large as Home Depot, which operates over 2000 stores. The amended complaint, therefore, must at least allege some facts showing how knowledge of the fraud would or should have percolated up to senior management. The amended complaint does not come close to accomplishing that task. In particular, [plaintiff’s] ‘must have known’ theory fails because the alleged amount of the fraud is wholly speculative, the type of fraud alleged would be very difficult for senior management to detect, [plaintiff] alleges no suspicious stock sales by management, and Home Depot’s 2004 overhaul of its RTV processing system does not suggest knowledge of widespread fraud.”

Centene Corporation requires all insider stock transactions by its senior executives to be executed under pre-authorized Rule 10b5-1 stock trading plans. That policy turns out to have been helpful in obtaining the dismissal of a securities class action against the company.

In Elam v. Neidorff, 2008 WL 4587310 (8th Cir. Oct. 16, 2008), the Eighth Circuit reviewed the dismissal of the securities class action against Centene and certain individual officers. The plaintiffs argued that scienter (i.e., fraudulent intent) was demonstrated, among other things, by insider stock sales during the class period. The court, however, found that the stock sales could not support an inference of scienter because they were (a) done pursuant to Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and (b) represented only a small portion of each seller’s overall holdings. Interestingly, the court discussed the terms of the trading plans, suggesting that the trading plans were publicly disclosed. (For more on this issue and related posts, click here.)

Holding: Dismissal affirmed (for failure to adequately plead falsity and scienter).