United States Supreme Court

In a putative class action against defendant-company and one of its executives, alleging that they made misrepresentations designed to inflate defendant-company's stock price, in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5, the District Court's decision certifying the class is vacated and remanded, where: 1) defendant-company has not shown a "special justification," for overruling the presumption of reliance upon the misrepresentation or omission; and 2) this Court declines to modify the prerequisites for invoking the presumption by requiring plaintiffs to prove "price impact" directly at the class certification stage; but 3) defendants must be afforded an opportunity to rebut the presumption of reliance before class certification with evidence of a lack of price impact.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/23/2014
• Published 06/23/2014

Judges

• ROBERTS

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel