Kevin LaCroix

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In the following guest post, Karen Boto, Legal Director at the Clyde & Co. law firm, takes a look at the unusual circumstances that have recently come to light in connection with the cryptocurrency trading platform Quadriga, as well as the insurance issues that the circumstances might involve. I would like to thank Karen for allowing me to publish her guest post. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to…
As was the case in 2017, there were relatively few larger securities class action lawsuit settlements during 2018, compared to prior years. As reported in latest large securities class action lawsuit settlement report from ISS Securities Class Action Services (ISS), there were only four settlements in 2018 that were large enough to make the list of all time large settlements; while the four settlements making the top 100 list is above the only two cases…
As I have previously noted, 2018 was another extraordinary year for U.S. securities class action litigation, as filings overall remained at near-historical rates. One of the significant contribution factors to this development was the substantial number of securities suits filed against life sciences companies. The number and significance of the securities suits filed against life sciences companies is detailed in a February  6, 2019 report from the Dechert law firm entitled “Dechert Survey: Developments in…
In an interesting recent decision, a court rejected two defenses a Financial Institution Bond insurer asserted in denying coverage for a bank’s losses arising from a $3.6 million loan extended in reliance on documents that proved to have been forged. District Court of Arizona Judge G. Murray Snow, applying Arizona law, rejected the bond insurer’s arguments that the loss did not trigger one of the bond’s insuring agreements and that the notice prejudice rule did…
This past week I was at the annual Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) D&O Symposium at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, New York. The weather on the Tuesday arrival day was unusually clement for early February in New York, and even though rain moved in on Wednesday evening, the good vibe on arrival day seemed to carry through the conference.…
It is extremely rare for securities class action lawsuits to go all the way through to a jury verdict. Since 1996, there have been more than 5,200 securities class action lawsuits filed, but, as detailed further below, fewer than 25 cases during that time have gone to trial. However, on February 4, 2019, a jury in the Central District of California entered a verdict in the securities class action lawsuit pending against Puma Biotechnology and…
Cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Companies that find themselves hit with data breaches face a number of challenges, including in particular the challenge of responding to strict breach disclosure and notification requirements. In the following guest post, Paul A. Ferrillo, a shareholder in the Greenberg Traurig law firm’s Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Crisis Management Practice, takes a look at the steps the companies can take before they are breached to be better positioned to respond…
As cybersecurity has become an increasingly important consideration for all corporate operations, one of the most pernicious problems has been the rise of so-called “ransomware” attacks – that is, systems breaches in which hackers take control of corporate networks and demand ransom payments as a condition of unlocking the systems. In the following guest post, John Reed Stark, President of John Reed Stark Consulting and former Chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, takes…
The number of federal court securities class action lawsuit filings remained “near record levels” during 2018, according to the latest report published by  Cornerstone Research in conjunction with the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. State court securities lawsuit filings, detailed in the report, drove securities class action litigation filing activity to even higher levels during 2018, arguably to the highest levels ever. According to the report, the likelihood of a U.S.-listed company getting…
During 2017 and 2018, plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a number of securities class action lawsuits against companies that had experienced data breaches. Among the highest profile of these cases was the securities lawsuit filed in 2017 against the credit rating firm, Equifax, which in September 2017 announced that hackers had breached its consumer database and accessed millions of records containing personally identifiable information. On January 28, 2019, in a ruling that will be closely analyzed in…