On March 20, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion holding that state courts have jurisdiction to hear securities fraud claims under the Securities Act of 1933. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed a brief in the case arguing that Congress adopted SLUSA (the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act) in 1998 in response to concerns that some state courts were permitting vexatious securities lawsuits to proceed to trial. In WLF’s view, SLUSA preempted all state-law claims that public companies had misled investors and decreed that suits alleging violation of federal securities laws should be heard in federal court, not state court. But the Supreme Court disagreed, holding instead that SLUSA did not strip state courts of concurrent jurisdiction to hear claims under the Securities Act of 1933. Nor did it authorize removing such suits from state to federal court.
Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund
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