CYAN INC. V. BEAVER COUNTY EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT FUND

The Delaware Supreme Court ruled today that Delaware corporations can adopt charter provisions requiring that actions under the federal Securities Act of 1933 be filed in a federal court. The decision in Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi gives Delaware corporations a way to avoid state-court or multi-forum litigation of Securities Act claims by channeling all such cases into the federal system, where they can be managed more effectively – and where they are subject to the more structured and stringent procedural standards mandated by federal law.

Delaware corporations might want to consider adopting federal-forum charter provisions to address the treatment of potential Securities Act claims.

The Supreme Court ruled today that judicially created principles that toll statutes of limitations for class members in timely filed class actions apply only to subsequently filed individual actions, not to follow-on class actions filed outside the limitations period. The decision in China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh (No. 17-432) thus eliminates the specter of a potentially infinite series of class actions in which each class representative claims that limitations periods were tolled by the pendency of the prior class actions.

China Agritech was a securities class action under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which has a five-year statute of repose that sets an untollable outer limit on the filing of claims. But many other causes of action are not governed by statutes of repose. The China Agritech decision should have particular impact on those types of cases.