Justia Corporate Compliance Opinion Summaries

The New Jersey Staffing Alliance, the American Staffing Association, and the New Jersey Business and Industry Association sought to enjoin a New Jersey law designed to protect temporary workers. The law, known as the Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights, mandates recordkeeping, disclosure requirements, and state certification procedures for staffing firms. It also imposes joint and several liability on clients hiring temporary workers and requires staffing firms to pay temporary workers wages equivalent to those of permanent employees performing similar work.The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denied the preliminary injunction, concluding that the Staffing Associations were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims. The court found that the law did not discriminate against out-of-state businesses, as it imposed the same burdens on both in-state and out-of-state firms. The court also rejected the void-for-vagueness claim, reasoning that the law provided sufficient guidance on its requirements. Additionally, the court determined that the law was a reasonable exercise of New Jersey’s police power, as it was rationally related to the legitimate state interest of protecting temporary workers.The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s decision. The Third Circuit agreed that the Staffing Associations failed to show a likelihood of success on their claims. The court held that the law did not violate the dormant Commerce Clause, as it did not favor in-state businesses over out-of-state competitors. The court also found that the law was not unconstitutionally vague, as it provided adequate notice of its requirements. Finally, the court upheld the law as a permissible exercise of state police power, as it was rationally related to the goal of protecting temporary workers. View "New Jersey Staffing Alliance v. Fais" on Justia Law

The case involves Gerald Forsythe, who filed a class action lawsuit against Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. and several of its officers. Forsythe claimed that he and others who purchased or acquired Teva securities between October 29, 2015, and August 18, 2020, suffered damages due to misstatements and omissions by Teva and its officers related to Copaxone, a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis. Teva's shares are dual listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.The District Court granted Forsythe's motion for class certification, rejecting Teva's assertion that the class definition should exclude purchasers of ordinary shares. The Court also rejected Teva's argument that Forsythe could not satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement.Teva sought permission to appeal the District Court’s Order granting class certification, arguing that interlocutory review is proper under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). Teva contended that the Petition presents a novel legal issue and that the District Court erred in its predominance analysis with respect to Forsythe’s proposed class-wide damages methodology.The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Teva's petition for permission to appeal. The court found that the securities issue did not directly relate to the requirements for class certification, and agreed with the District Court’s predominance analysis. The court also clarified that permission to appeal should be granted where the certification decision itself under Rule 23(a) and (b) turns on a novel or unsettled question of law, not simply where the merits of a particular case may turn on such a question. View "Forsythe v. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd" on Justia Law

The case involves a shareholder derivative action against Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation and its board of directors. The plaintiffs, shareholders of Cognizant, alleged that the directors breached their fiduciary duties, engaged in corporate waste, and unjust enrichment. The allegations stemmed from a bribery scheme in India, where Cognizant employees allegedly paid bribes to secure construction-related permits and licenses. The plaintiffs claimed that the directors ignored red flags about the company's anti-corruption controls and concealed their concerns from shareholders.The case was initially dismissed by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, which held that the plaintiffs failed to state with particularity the reasons why making a demand on the board of directors would have been futile. The plaintiffs appealed this decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.The Third Circuit, sitting en banc, reconsidered the standard of review for dismissals of shareholder derivative actions for failure to plead demand futility. The court decided to abandon its previous standard of review, which was for an abuse of discretion, and adopted a de novo standard of review. Applying this new standard, the court affirmed the District Court's dismissal of the case. The court found that the plaintiffs failed to show that a majority of the directors faced a substantial likelihood of liability or lacked independence, which would have excused the requirement to make a demand on the board. View "In re: COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORPORATION DERIVATIVE LITIGATION" on Justia Law

Jaludi worked at Citigroup. After he reported company wrongdoing, he was demoted, transferred, and (in 2013) terminated. He claims Citigroup blacklisted him from the financial industry. In 2015, Jaludi sued Citigroup for retaliation under both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and RICO. The district court sent his claims to arbitration. Jaludi appealed the arbitration order. In early 2018, while that appeal was pending, he filed an administrative complaint with the Secretary of Labor, adding one new allegation that, in late 2017, a headhunter had stopped returning his calls. In 2019, the Third Circuit remanded, holding that he was not required to arbitrate his Sarbanes-Oxley claims.On remand, the district court dismissed, finding his administrative complaint untimely. Though Sarbanes-Oxley required an administrative complaint within 180 days of the retaliatory conduct, he had waited more than two years after the last incident. Jaludi argued that the court should have granted him leave to amend because the 2017 allegation that he added in his administrative complaint happened fewer than 180 days before that complaint, making it timely. The Third Circuit affirmed. Although neither filing the administrative complaint after the statute of limitations had run nor suing before exhausting his administrative remedies was jurisdictional under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Jaludi’s delay in filing justified the dismissal. View "Jaludi v. Citigroup & Co." on Justia Law

Attorneys Blume, Cozen, and Madonia were involved in the sale to The Institutes of LLCs owned by the Shareholders. Blume also served on the board of directors and as General Counsel for one of the LLCs, assisting the Shareholders in making business decisions. Unbeknownst to the Shareholders, Cozen represented The Institutes in several matters, including negotiating the price for their transaction. After the deal closed, the Shareholders allegedly determined that they had sold the LLCs at a price substantially below their fair market value and that the attorneys had wrongfully secured a favorable outcome for The Institutes by using confidential client information.Shareholder Potter sued in the Shareholders' names, claiming breach of fiduciary duty and professional malpractice, although he identified the harm as “the difference in the true value of the [LLCs] and the purchase price” that was to be paid to the LLCs themselves. The lawyers argued that under the “shareholder standing rule,” the individuals did not have the legal right to bring the entities' claims in their own names. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, stating that the Shareholders “lack[ed] Article III standing." The Third Circuit vacated. The third-party standing rule is merely prudential, not constitutional and jurisdictional, and is properly considered under Rule 12(b)(6), not Rule 12(b)(1). There are different considerations in deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) that could produce a different outcome in this case. View "Potter v. Cozen & O'Connor" on Justia Law

Four defendants, who have multiple ties to organized crime, were convicted for their roles in the unlawful takeover and looting of FirstPlus Financial, a publicly traded mortgage loan company. Their scheme began with the defendants’ and their co-conspirators’ extortion of FirstPlus’s board of directors and its chairman, using lies and threats to gain control of the company. Once they forced the old leadership out, the defendants drained the company of its value by causing it to enter into expensive consulting and legal-services agreements with themselves, causing it to acquire (at vastly inflated prices) shell companies they personally owned, and using bogus trusts to funnel FirstPlus’s assets into their own accounts. They ultimately bankrupted FirstPlus, leaving its shareholders with worthless stock.Each defendant was convicted of more than 20 counts of criminal behavior and given a substantial prison sentence. In a consolidated appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the investigation, the charges and evidence against them, the pretrial process, the government’s compliance with its disclosure obligations, the trial, the forfeiture proceedings, and their sentences. The government conceded that the district court’s assessment of one defendant’s forfeiture obligations was improper under a Supreme Court decision handed down during the pendency of this appeal and remanded that assessment. View "United States v. Scarfo" on Justia Law

Under Pennsylvania law, a court may appoint a custodian to take control of a corporation if the corporation’s board of directors is deadlocked or if the directors’ acts are illegal, oppressive, fraudulent, or wasteful. The eight-person FRBK Board of Directors became evenly split into two factions until one of the Hill Directors died. The Madonna Directors immediately used their new numerical advantage to start rearranging the bank’s leadership and took steps to fill the Board vacancy with an ally.The Hill Directors sued. Within hours, the district court ordered the Madonna Directors to cease their actions. Nine days later, without an evidentiary hearing or fact-finding, the court appointed a custodian to take control of FRBK and to hold a special shareholders’ meeting to fill the vacant Board seat. The following month, the court – without prompting from any shareholder or Board member – directed the custodian to add a Board seat and to fill that seat at the special shareholders’ meeting.The Third Circuit reversed. The decision to displace the corporate governance structure of a publicly-traded company did not reflect the required caution, circumspection, or justification for such a drastic step. FRBK’s bylaws describe how the Board should proceed after the death of a director. The Madonna Directors followed those instructions. The court abused its discretion by hastily supplanting the Bylaws with its own process. There was no deadlock, illegality, oppression, or any other ground for appointing a custodian. View "Hill v. Cohen" on Justia Law

In 2005, revelations surfaced that Body Armor—a publicly-traded company—was manufacturing its body armor, which it sold to law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military, using substandard materials. Its stock price plummeted, prompting shareholders to bring numerous actions that were consolidated into a shareholders’ class action and a derivative action on behalf of Body Armor against specified officers and directors. Since then, the matter has traveled, through bankruptcy, trial, and appellate courts throughout three U.S. jurisdictions. In its second review of the case, the Third Circuit affirmed a 2015 Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware order, approving a settlement entered in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of S.S. Body Armor I. The court reversed in part the Bankruptcy Court’s order that granted the objector fees on a contingent basis and remanded for a determination of the appropriate amount of the fee award. The court affirmed the part of that order that denied the objector’s claim to attorneys’ fees and expenses under the Bankruptcy Code and an order awarding fees to counsel in one of the underlying lawsuits. View "In re: SS Body Armor I Inc." on Justia Law

Jaludi began working for Citigroup in 1985 and rose steadily through the ranks. Jaludi was laid off and terminated in 2013 after reporting certain improprieties in Citigroup’s internal complaint monitoring system. Jaludi, believing Citigroup had fired him in retaliation for his reporting, sued under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962 (RICO), and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, 18 U.S.C. 1514A. Citigroup moved to compel arbitration, relying on two Employee Handbooks. The 2009 Employee Handbook, contained an arbitration agreement requiring arbitration of all claims arising out of employment—including Sarbanes–Oxley claims. In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which amended Sarbanes–Oxley to prohibit pre-dispute agreements to arbitrate whistleblower claims, 18 U.S.C. 1514A(e)). In 2011, Citigroup and Jaludi agreed to the 2011 Employee Handbook; the arbitration agreement appended to that Handbook excluded “disputes which by statute are not arbitrable” and deleted Sarbanes–Oxley from the list of arbitrable claims. Nonetheless, the district court held that arbitration was required for all of Jaludi’s claims. The Third Circuit reversed in part. Although Jaludi’s RICO claim falls within the scope of either Handbook’s arbitration provision, the operative 2011 arbitration agreement supersedes the 2009 arbitration agreement and prohibits the arbitration of Sarbanes–Oxley claims. View "Jaludi v. Citigroup" on Justia Law

Tibet, a holding company, “effectively control[led]” Yunnan, a manufacturer. Tibet attempted to raise capital for Yunnan's operations through an initial public offering (IPO). Zou was an investor in Tibet and the sole director of CT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tibet. Tibet’s control of Yunnan flowed through CT. Zou told Downs, a managing director at the investment bank A&S, about the IPO. A&S agreed to serve as Tibet’s placement agent. Zou and downs were neither signatories to Tibet’s IPO registration statement nor named as directors of Tibet but were listed as non-voting board observers chosen by A&S without formal powers or duties. The registration statement explained, “they may nevertheless significantly influence the outcome of matters submitted to the Board.” The registration statement omitted information that Yunnan had defaulted on a loan from the Chinese government months earlier. Before Tibet filed its amended final prospectus, the Chinese government froze Yunnan’s assets. Tibet did not disclose that. The IPO closed, offering three million public shares at $5.50 per share. The Agricultural Bank of China auctioned off Yunnan’s assets, which prompted the NASDAQ to halt trading in Tibet’s stock. Plaintiffs sued Zou, Downs, Tibet, A&S, and others on behalf of a class of stock purchasers under the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. 77k(a). The Third Circuit directed the entry of summary judgment in favor of Zou and Downs, holding that a nonvoting board observer affiliated with an issuer’s placement agent is not a “person who, with his consent, is named in the registration statement as being or about to become a director[ ] [or] person performing similar functions,” under section 77k(a). The court noted the registration statement’s description of the defendants, whose functions are not “similar” to those of board directors. View "Obasi Investment Ltd v. Tibet Pharmaceuticals Inc" on Justia Law