Source: https://classactionblawg.com/tag/national-australia-bank/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 19:22:56+00:00

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The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision last week that confirms that there are still situations where primarily foreign securities fraud disputes may be litigated as class actions in the United States courts. The decision explores the contours of the US Supreme Court’s holding in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010) that § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 does not have an extraterritorial reach. Here’s a link to the opinion, courtesy of the New York Law Journal: Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Ficeto, No. 11-0221-cv (2d Cir., March 1, 2012).
Morrison recognized two situations in which a securities fraud claim would be sufficiently domestic in nature to be governed by § 10(b) and SEC Rule 10b-5. The first, not at issue in Absolute Activist, is where the security is traded on a US exchange. Absolute Activist addresses the second situation, which involves “domestic transactions in other securities.” The Second Circuit’s test for whether transactions are domestic is whether “irrevocable liability is incurred or title passes within the United States.” In simpler terms, if the parties become bound to effectuate the transaction in the United States, the transaction is a domestic one, but the transaction could also be domestic if title to the securities passes within in the United States, even if the parties became bound elsewhere. In reaching this conclusion, the panel rejected several other tests proposed by the parties, including tests proposed by the plaintiff that would have looked to the location of the broker-dealer or to whether the security was issued by a US company or was registered with the SEC, and tests proposed by defendants that would look to the place of residence of both the buyer and seller in the transaction or to whether a given defendant committed some affirmative act within the United States.
Are US Class Actions in Danger of Being Outsourced to Mexico?
Kevin LaCroix, whose blog The D&O Diary is a premier source for the latest trends in securities-related class action litigation, has an excellent post out today discussing two key developments in an area that is very close to my heart, international class action litigation. The first part of LaCroix’s post discusses a recent publication from Asia-based International law firm King & Wood Mallesons discussing class action filings in Australia. According to the report, there are currently only about 14 class action filings filed on average in the Australian federal court, a number that represents less than 1% of all federal filings in that country (this figure does not include filings in the courts of individual states; both Victoria and New South Wales also have civil procedure rules similar to the federal rules).
The second part of the post addresses the potential implications of the recent enactment of a class action law in Mexico. LaCroix summarizes a recent Jones Day publication on the subject, then adds his own commentary. In particular, he makes an observation similar to one that international plaintiffs’ class action lawyers Michael Hausfeld and Brian Ratner make in the forthcoming book World Class Actions: that one of the potential implications of the US Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, which limited f-cubed securities class actions in the United States, may be an increase in litigation in foreign jurisdictions that allow for securities class actions or some other form of collective redress.
Cert Granted in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.
The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari to review the Second Circuit’s decision in the “foreign-cubed” securities class action Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd., No. 07-0583-cv (2d Cir. 2008). The Second Circuit’s decision is discussed at some length in this October 28, 2008 CAB Entry. The Supreme Court docket number is 08-1191.
I. Whether the antifraud provisions of the United States securities laws extend to transnational frauds where: (a) the foreign-based parent company conducted substantial business in the United States, its American Depository Receipts were traded on the New York Stock Exchange and its financial statements were filed with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”); and (b) the claims arose from a massive accounting fraud perpetrated by American citizens at the parent company’s Florida-based subsidiary and were merely reported from overseas in the parent company’s financial statements.
II. Whether this Court, which has never addressed the issue of whether subject matter jurisdiction may extend to claims involving transnational securities fraud, should set forth a policy to resolve the three-way conflict among the circuits (i.e., District of Columbia Circuit versus the Second, Fifth and Seventh Circuits versus the Third, Eighth and Ninth Circuits).
III. Whether the Second Circuit should have adopted the SEC’s proposed standard for determining the proper exercise of subject matter jurisdiction in transnational securities fraud cases, as set forth in the SEC’s amicus brief submitted at the request of the Second Circuit, and whether the Second Circuit should have adopted the SEC’s finding that subject matter jurisdiction exists here due to the “material and substantial conduct in furtherance of” the securities fraud that occurred in the United States.

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