Last week, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant decision in a shareholder class action against BofI, a bank holding company. The appeals court, in an opinion by Judge Paul Watford, revived a class action alleging, among other things, that the bank’s share price plunged in response to disclosures in a whistleblower lawsuit. The 9th Circuit joined the 6th Circuit to conclude that a whistleblower complaint containing allegations from a corporate insider can serve as a “corrective disclosure” of the company’s misstatements. If the market perceives the whistleblower’s allegations to be true and reacts accordingly, the appeals court held, shareholders can base their loss causation arguments on the filing of the lawsuit.
via Two Trump-appointed circuit judges don’t think much of shareholder class actions