Listen & Download

On November 3, 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Omnicare v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund. This case concerns Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, which authorizes suit by a purchaser of securities issued under a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission--if the registration statement “contained an untrue statement of material fact or omitted to state a material fact required to be stated therein or necessary to make the statement therein not misleading.”

The question here is whether a Section 11 plaintiff may plead that a statement of opinion was “untrue” merely by alleging that the opinion itself was objectively wrong, as the Sixth Circuit has concluded, or whether the plaintiff also must allege that the statement was subjectively false – requiring allegations that the speaker’s genuinely held opinion was different from the one expressed – as the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits have held.

To discuss the case, we have George Conway, who is a partner in the Litigation Department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.