The 10b-5 Daily

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has issued a decision that addresses two pressing securities litigation issues. In Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana v. Hunter, 2007 WL 509787 (4th Cir. Feb. 20, 2007), the court considered: (a) whether the plaintiffs could establish the scienter of the corporate defendant using a collective scienter theory; and (b) what is the proper pleading standard for loss causation.

Collective scienter – The court rejected the idea that a corporate defendant’s scienter can be established based on the collective knowledge of its employees. Specifically, the court held that “if the defendant is a corporation, the plaintiff must allege facts that support a strong inference of scienter with respect to at least one authorized agent of the corporation, since corporate liability derives from the actions of its agents.” Although the court did not expressly determine whether the agent also must be alleged to have made a misstatement, the court’s citation to the Southland decision (5th Cir.) offers some support for that interpretation.

Loss causation – The court noted that in Dura the U.S. Supreme Court expressly did not decide whether the pleading of loss causation is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b). In examining the issue, the court found that a “strong case can be made that because loss causation is among the ‘circumstances constituting fraud’ for which Rule 9(b) demands particularity, loss causation should be pleaded with particularity.” Based on this observation and the public policy concerns outlined in Dura, the court concluded that loss causation must be plead “with sufficient specificity to enable the court to evaluate whether the necessary causal link exists.” In the instant case, the court found that the plaintiffs did not adequately plead loss causation. Although the disclosure that caused the stock price decline accused the corporate defendant of fraud, it did not provide any “new facts” that “revealed [the corporate defendant’s] previous representations to have been fraudulent.”

Holding: Dismissal affirmed (based on the failure to adequately plead falsity, scienter, and loss causation).

Disclosure: The author of The 10b-5 Daily represented the defendants in this litigation.

A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit offers some interesting clarifications on the scope of accountant liability for securities fraud. In Lattanzio v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 2007 WL 259877 (2d Cir. Jan. 31, 2007), the court addressed whether Deloitte could be held liable for statements in audited and unaudited financial filings.

As to the company’s unaudited financial filings, the court found that Deloitte’s regulatory obligation to review the company’s quarterly statements did not turn those statements into accountant’s statements. Even if the public understood that Deloitte was engaging in these reviews, the accountant’s “assurances were never communicated to the public.” The court also rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the reviews created a duty to correct the quarterly financial statements if false and that a breach of this duty amounted to a misstatement by Deloitte. The court noted that there is a distinct difference between the duties and liabilities created by a review of interim financial statements and those created by an audit of annual financials.

As to the company’s audited financial filings, the court dismissed the relevant claims based on a failure to adequately plead loss causation. The court held that the “plaintiffs had to allege that Deloitte’s misstatements [in the company’s annual reports concerning accounts payable and inventories] concealed the risk of [the company’s] bankruptcy.” Given that Deloitte had issued a going concern warning – along with the disclosed (if understated) collapse in the company’s value – the risk of bankruptcy was apparent. Accordingly, the court found that the plaintiffs had not alleged facts showing that Deloitte’s misstatements were the “proximate cause of plaintiffs’ loss; nor have they alleged facts that would allow a factfinder to ascribe some rough proportion of the whole loss to Deloitte’s misstatements.”

Holding: Dismissal affirmed.

Quote of note: “Public understanding that an accountant is at work behind the scenes does not create an exception to the requirement that an actionable misstatement be made by the accountant. Unless the public’s understanding is based on the accountant’s articulated statement, the source for that understanding – whether it be a regulation, an accounting practice, or something else – does not matter.”

Addition: Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sat on the panel.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case on the pleading standards for scienter (i.e., fraudulent intent) has received little media attention . . . until today. The New York Times has an article on the SEC’s recent activities related to private securities litigation, including the agency’s decision to file an amicus brief in the Tellabs case in support of the defendants.

In their brief, the SEC/DOJ rejected the “reasonable person” test applied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in evaluating whether the “strong inference” of scienter pleading standard was met. Instead, “a court should determine whether, taking the alleged facts as true, there is a high likelihood that the conclusion that the defendant possessed scienter follows from those facts.” If the same facts both support and negate an inference of scienter, “the court should consider the relative strength of both inferences, because, where there is a substantial possibility that the defendant acted without scienter, the inference of scienter will not be ‘strong.'”

Quote of note (New York Times): “Critics said that the moves signaled a major retrenchment from the post-Enron changes and showed that a lobbying push by big companies, Wall Street firms and the accounting industry was gaining traction as they seek to roll back what they see as onerous regulation and excessive investor litigation. But Christopher Cox, the chairman of the commission, said in an interview Monday that both efforts were in the best interests of investors because they aimed at preventing the accounting industry from further consolidation and at limiting what he called ‘fraudulent lawsuits,’ including some he said were filed by ‘professional plaintiffs.'”