Supreme Court Limits State-Court Securities-Fraud Class Actions

In a victory for corporations and a defeat for securities class-action plaintiffs’ lawyers, the Supreme Court today severely limited the viability of shareholder lawsuits brought in state courts. The unanimous opinion written by Justice Stevens ruled that the purpose of the pre-emption provision of SLUSA — the 1998 federal securities litigation law — is to pre-empt certain types of state-law shareholder class actions.