Securities Litigation Outlook for 2021
Date: 03/09/21
Last year was an unprecedented year for securities litigation due, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although filings of new federal class actions were down 22% in 2020 versus 2019, we saw a spate of new lawsuits related to COVID-19, as well as notable filings related to special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) and cryptocurrency. We expect these trends to continue in 2021. We also anticipate a potentially landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States in Arkansas Teacher Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., 955 F.3d 254 (2d Cir. 2020), cert. granted, 2020 WL 7296815 (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020) (No. 20-222) (“Arkansas v. Goldman”), in which the Court is expected to resolve long-standing questions about the standard for rebutting at the class certification stage the presumption of reliance in securities fraud cases established in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988) (“Basic”).
Securities Litigation Outlook for 2021.pdf (pdf | 137.92 KB )