A complaint filed on Friday by the City of Providence accuses high frequency stock traders, stock exchanges and brokerage houses of rigging the stock market at the expense of ordinary investors.  Coming in the wake of publicity from Michael Lewis’ new book, Flash Boys, the suit is brought on behalf of a massive putative class of all investors who bought or sold shares on public exchanges for the past five years.  Among the named defendants are the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges, Bank of America, E*Trade and other banks and brokers.
Continue Reading Complaint Alleges Fraud by High Frequency Traders, Stock Exchanges and Brokers

In an opinion filed last week but just posted to the ECF docket this morning, Judge Sweet denied the motion of Facebook and its underwriter banks to dismiss federal securities claims arising from the May 2012 Facebook IPO.  Noting specifically that the complaint does not allege securities fraud, Judge Sweet permitted the class action complaint of violations of other sections of the securities laws to go forward.
Continue Reading Judge Sweet Denies Facebook’s Motion to Dismiss Federal Securities Claims

In a decision last week, Judge Sweet ruled that the self-regulatory organization (“SRO”) immunity applied to bar some of the claims brought against the NASDAQ stock exchange in the consolidated In re Facebook IPO litigation.  Judge Sweet’s opinion in essence divided the claims between those that preceded the IPO and those that occurred during and after the IPO, holding the SRO immunity did not shield the NASDAQ for pre-IPO-based claims.
Continue Reading Judge Sweet Dismisses Some, but Not All, Claims Against NASDAQ in Facebook IPO Suit

As we have reported on before, a putative class action filed against Quicktrim, LLC and its celebrity spokespeople, the Kardashians of reality television fame, seeks to hold the Kardashians liable for deceptive marketing of the Quicktrim weight loss product. In an amended complaint filed today, the plaintiffs claim that Quicktrim is nothing but a caffeine pill, and the Kardashians have personally marketed it with their own web sites and even tweets, which direct readers to links to buy the product.
Continue Reading Putative Class Amends Complaint Against Quicktrim and Kardashians, Cites Deceptive Tweets