WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is making it tougher for investors to join together to sue corporations for securities fraud.
The justices said Monday that companies should have a chance at the early stages of a lawsuit to show that any alleged fraud was not responsible for a drop in the company’s stock price.
The ruling is a partial victory for Halliburton Co., which is trying to block a class-action lawsuit claiming the energy services company inflated its stock price.
It is also a modest win for business groups that hoped to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to bring class-action cases. But the high court rejected Halliburton’s request to overturn a quarter-century-old precedent that has made it easier for plaintiffs to negotiate billions of dollars in legal settlements.
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They didn’t list who ruled on which side of the case?? That’s like the first thing people look for. AP is going downhill.
At first blush it sounds like they are saying that fraud is not a problem in and of itself.
Sounds suspiciously like their ruling in the free speech for “lies” case.
I wonder if this will blow back on them somehow.
Rupert Murdoch won his appeals years ago–he has license to force his Fux minions to lie, without any legal recourse. This is just more of the same fascism, elevated by the right wing nut jobs of the SCOTUS.
Shock! Shock I tell you! A ruling from this Bush/Cheney Supreme Court that favors corporation rights over the individual.
I think it’s reasonable that a party to a lawsuit have the opportunity to demonstrate their own innocence before being forced through an expensive court case. From the article, it’s not clear how much time or to what degree the defending corporation must prove their own ‘innocence’. Do they get years, which would be chilling on any group of investors seeking to reclaim damages, or would this allow a court case to proceed more speedily after preliminary findings?
This article also gives the impression that most of these shareholders are small you and me folks, when in reality, these are other instutional investors. It’s hard for me to get worked up over two corporations/billionairs having their ‘rights’ to play legal games with each other limited by the SCOTUS.