Claire Loebs Davis

Firm/Organization: Lane Powell PC
Blogs: D&O Discourse

Latest Articles

Following is an article we wrote for Law360, which gave us permission to republish it here: The coming year promises to be a pivotal one in the world of securities and corporate governance litigation.  In particular, there are five developing issues we are watching that have the greatest potential to significantly increase or decrease the exposure of public companies and their directors, officers, and insurers. 1.  How Will Lower Courts Apply the Supreme Court’s Decision in Omnicare,…
In the opinion issued yesterday in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund (“Omnicare”), the Supreme Court rejected the two extremes advocated by the parties regarding how the truth or falsity of statements of opinion should be considered under the securities laws, and instead adopted the middle path advocated in the amicus brief filed by Lane Powell on behalf of the Washington Legal Foundation (“WLF”). In doing so, the Court also laid out…
Monday’s oral argument before the Supreme Court in Laborers District Counsel Construction Industry Pension Fund v. Omnicare, Inc. (“Omnicare”) was remarkable in that, as Omnicare attorney Kannon Shanmugam noted, it was the “rare case in which none of the parties is defending the reasoning of the court of appeals below.” As we explained in last week’s blog post previewing the argument, the Sixth Circuit held in the decision under review that a showing of so-called “objective falsity” alone was sufficient to demonstrate falsity in a claim filed…
Even the most experienced securities defense attorneys regularly summarize Rule 10b-5(b) as creating a cause of action for “false or misleading statements and omissions of material fact.”  Courts –including the Supreme Court – routinely use the same shorthand.   When I was a new securities litigation defense attorney, one of the first things that I learned was the importance of adding the rest of the sentence: “false or misleading statements and omissions of material fact necessary…
When is an opinion a false or misleading statement?  If a company official says “I think the deal is fair,” is it a false statement just because the deal is objectively unfair?  Or only if the official also did not subjectively believe the deal was fair when he voiced that opinion? With the Sixth Circuit’s opinion in Indiana State District Council of Laborers v. Omnicare, 719 F.3d 498 (6th Cir. 2013), a circuit split…