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The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit yesterday reversed the dismissal of a securities class action alleging fraud based on the defendants’ failure to disclose an SEC investigation into the company’s disclosed financial-control weaknesses.  The May 24, 2022 ruling in Noto v. 22nd Century Group, Inc. (No. 21-0347) is fact-specific, requiring disclosure of the investigation because the defendants (i) had disclosed the accounting deficiencies that had led to the investigation, (ii) had said they were working on the problem, and (iii) eventually had said they had resolved it, even though the SEC investigation had been pending during that entire period.

The Noto decision could affect disclosure assessments where issuers disclose an underlying accounting problem or other deficiency but are debating whether they must also disclose a pending SEC or other governmental investigation related to that specific problem.  Depending on the facts and circumstances of the particular situation, a court might hold that failure to disclose the governmental investigation makes the disclosure of the underlying problem materially misleading because nondisclosure of the investigation could cause reasonable investors to make “an overly optimistic assessment of the risk” posed by the underlying problem.

The Fourth Circuit ruled yesterday that a plaintiff can sufficiently plead loss causation to establish a securities-fraud claim based on an “amalgam” of two theories:  corrective disclosure, and materialization of a concealed risk.  In so holding, the court concluded in Singer v. Reali that the issuer’s disclosure of a government subpoena and an analyst’s report discussing that subpoena collectively revealed sufficient additional information to connect the company’s alleged misstatements and omissions to the subsequent 40% stock-price drop.

Because of the Fourth Circuit’s “amalgam” analysis, it is unclear whether and, if so, to what extent the Singer decision is in tension with decisions by other Courts of Appeals holding that disclosures of governmental investigations or internal investigations do not, without more, sufficiently establish loss causation for pleading purposes.  Various appellate courts appear to be putting their own refinements on the analysis, and the law might not be entirely settled on this issue.

A Pennsylvania federal court held yesterday that an agreement not to use confidential inside information for trading purposes need not precede the receipt of that information in order to create liability under the misappropriation theory of insider trading. The ruling in SEC v. Cooperman (E.D. Pa.) appears to be the first decision to address the “novel issue” of “[w]hether liability under the misappropriation theory of insider trading may be premised on a post disclosure agreement” not to trade on or otherwise use inside information.

This decision, if followed by other courts, could give the Government greater leeway in pursuing claims against persons who allegedly agreed not to trade on material, nonpublic information received from corporate insiders. The decision allows such claims to proceed even if the Government cannot specify when the alleged agreement was made, as long as the agreement preceded the actual trading.

Last month, the SEC announced that it had adopted amendments updating the rules of practice governing its in-house administrative proceedings.  On August 9, 2016, Compliance Week published an article on the recently-adopted amendments, entitled, SEC modifies administrative proceedings, but did it go far enough? The article features insights from Proskauer partner Joshua Newville, who discusses whether the amendments sufficiently address the SEC’s perceived “home-field advantage” in administrative proceedings.

A handful of recent SEC defeats in administrative proceedings have caused us to question the conventional narrative that the SEC has a distinct “home field advantage” before its own administrative law judges.  According to analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal, the SEC had a 90% win rate in contested cases it brought before its ALJs from October 2010 through March 2015, while it prevailed in only 69% of federal court trials over the same period.  After the SEC lost five high-profile insider trading trials in 2014, this narrative seemed to fit.

Earlier today, the SEC announced that it will adopt certain amendments to its rules of practice governing administrative proceedings. Faced with criticism from practitioners and the media regarding a perceived “home field advantage” in administrative proceedings, as well as various constitutional challenges to the ALJ process, the SEC has now approved amendments “intended to update the rules and introduce additional flexibility into administrative proceedings.”

This week, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates delivered remarks at the New York City Bar Association reflecting on the eight months since the release of the “Yates Memo,” or as Deputy AG Yates prefers, the “Individual Accountability Policy” (“the Policy”).  The Policy’s release in September 2015 followed prolonged criticism over a perceived lack of prosecution of individuals responsible for corporate misconduct.  Aimed at increasing prosecutions of such individuals, the Policy outlined six directives to prosecutors, which we covered in an earlier post.

The Department of Justice yesterday upped the ante in its efforts to encourage companies to self-report potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) violations when it unveiled a one-year pilot program that includes carrots for companies who take the self-reporting route and sticks for those that don’t.  This announcement follows the Department’s recent emphasis on prosecuting individuals in white collar cases, the addition of new resources to combat corruption that includes ten new FCPA prosecutors and three new squads of FBI agents dedicated to investigating corruption, and enhanced cooperation between U.S. law enforcement and their international counterparts.   Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell said that the objective of the pilot program is to provide greater transparency into the Department’s charging decisions and to provide an incentive for companies to self-disclose FCPA misconduct so that the Department can prosecute “individuals whose criminal wrongdoing might otherwise never be uncovered by or disclosed to law enforcement.”