Robert L Hickok

June 29, 2010 | The Legal Intelligencer

Establishing scienter in private securities fraud litigation under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) can be a daunting challenge to even the most skilled and seasoned practitioners.

By Robert L. Hickok and James H.S. Levine

13 minute read

October 07, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

Making headlines recently was the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona vacating a $277 million jury verdict in favor of a class of shareholders of Apollo Group Inc. on the grounds that plaintiff had failed to prove loss causation as required under Dura Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Broudo.

By Robert L. Hickok and Patricia A. McCausland

11 minute read

May 27, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

Although home-mortgage loan practices, such as no-documentation loans, no-down payment loans, higher mortgage rates for riskier borrowers and adjustable rates grew largely without notice or criticism during the real estate boom of the last decade, the recent slow down in the housing market, decreasing home values and volatile interest rates have led to widespread defaults on loans, sending shockwaves through the financial markets trading in the collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, and the collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, based on those loans

By Robert L. Hickok and Alison Altman Gross

11 minute read

October 28, 2011 | The Legal Intelligencer

Corporate practitioners in Pennsylvania have long believed that while a transaction may be susceptible to pre-merger lawsuits for breach of fiduciary duty or equitable claims for injunctive relief.

By Robert L. Hickok, John P. Duke and John Shasanmi

13 minute read

December 23, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

The U.S. Supreme Court asked the acting solicitor general for the federal government's view before deciding whether to grant a writ of certiorari in a federal securities litigation action stemming from a 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals' opinion -- Betz v. Trainer Wortham & Company Inc. -- involving the statute of limitations period for securities fraud claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

By Robert L. Hickok And Thomas T. Watkinson II

10 minute read

January 04, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

Last March, in the securities class action Matrixx Initiatives v. Siracusano, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the defendants' proposed bright-line "statistically significant" rule for determining whether adverse event reports withheld from a pharmaceutical company's public filings are material as a matter of law.

By Robert L. Hickok and Gay Parks Rainville

11 minute read

June 04, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

The third proxy season of the Dodd-Frank Act's mandatory shareholder "say-on-pay" advisory votes is well underway, and "round two" of shareholder say-on-pay litigation is in full swing.

By Robert L. Hickok and Gay Parks Rainville

10 minute read

July 17, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

On June 11, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear biotechnology company Amgen Inc.'s appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's decision to affirm class certification in the securities fraud class action Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds.

By Robert L. Hickok And Gay Parks Rainville

9 minute read

March 05, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

On February 13, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York issued a potentially groundbreaking opinion dismissing a number of shareholder derivative suits against officers and directors of Facebook Inc. in In re Facebook IPO Securities and Derivative Litigation.

By Robert L. Hickok, Gay Parks Rainville and Joseph W. Jesiolowski

8 minute read

September 03, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

Thanks to two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, 133 S. Ct. 1184 (2013), and Erica P. John Fund v. Halliburton, 131 S. Ct. 2179 (2011), plaintiffs in securities fraud class actions brought under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5 do not need to prove two of the essential elements of their claim, loss causation and materiality, at the class certification stage.

By Robert L. Hickok, Gay Parks Rainville and Min Choi

7 minute read