The
U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case reviewing an interpretation by
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals of the scope of the preclusive effect of the
federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act, which precludes most
state-law class actions in which the plaintiffs allege misrepresentations in
connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security. Chadbourne &
Parke, LLP v. Troice; Willis of Colorado Inc. v. Troice; Proskauer Rose LLP v.
Troice,. Dkt. Nos. 12-79, 12-86 and 12-88.
The
case arose from a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme run by Allen Stanford and
various entities that he controlled, including a bank which issued fixed-return
certificates of deposit (CDs) that the bank falsely claimed were backed by
safe, liquid investments. In fact, the
claimed investments did not exist, and the bank had to use new CD sales
proceeds to make interest and redemption payments on pre-existing CDs.
After
the fraud was discovered, two groups of Louisiana investors filed suits in
state court against a number of Stanford companies and employees claiming
violations of Louisiana law. The defendants removed the Louisiana cases to
federal court, and all of the actions were ultimately transferred to the
Northern District of Texas, which dismissed the complaints as precluded under
SLUSA. The district court held that,
while the CDs themselves were not “covered securities,” the plaintiffs had
nevertheless alleged misrepresentations made in connection with transactions in
covered securities since the bank said that it invested its assets in highly
marketable securities issued by stable governments and strong multinational
companies. The district court found that the bank led the plaintiffs to believe
that the CDs were backed, at least in part, by investments in SLUSA-covered
securities.
The
Fifth Circuit reversed, deeming the references to the bank portfolio being
backed by covered securities to be merely tangentially related to the heart the
defendants’ fraud. Misrepresentations
about the investments were only one of a host of misrepresentations, reasoned
the appeals court, which also observed that, because the CDs promised a fixed
rate of return, they were not tied to the success of any of the bank’s
purported investments in covered securities within the meaning of SLUSA.
Justice Elena Kagan
noted that somebody,
not necessarily the victim of the fraud, but somebody has to have had some
transaction in the market. It is the kind of misrepresentation that would
affect someone in making transactions in the covered market. How would this do
that, she asked Paul Clement, who was arguing on behalf of the petitioners.
Mr. Clement
said that the whole point of this fraud was to take a non-covered security and
to imbue it with some of the positive qualities of a covered security, the most
important of which being liquidity. And if you look at sort of the underlying
brochures here that were used to market this, he continued, that is really what
this fraud was all about. These CDs were offered as being better than normal
CDs because we can get you your money whenever you need it.
Justice
Samuel Alito queried whether it mattered that there apparently is not an
allegation that there actually were any purchases or sales of covered
securities. The statute says "in connection with the purchase or sale of a
covered security." He did not see an allegation that they actually were
purchased or sold. Does that matter, he asked.
Mr.
Clement said that it did not matter because you don't want to draw a line that
basically says if you buy different securities than you were supposed to or you
sell fewer than you were supposed to, that's covered, but if you're a Madoff
and you go all the way and simply lie about the whole thing and there never
were any securities purchases at all, that that's somehow better. You cannot
somehow have a better fraud that's immune from the SEC just because you
completely made the whole thing up and there were no transactions at all, he
contended.
Justice Antonin Scalia said that he had
assumed that the purpose of the securities laws was to protect the purchasers
and sellers of the covered securities. There is no purchaser or seller of a
covered security involved here, he noted, adding that it is a purchaser of
not-covered securities who is being defrauded, if anyone. Why would the federal
securities law protect that person, he asked, somewhat rhetorically,
Mr.
Clement noted that the federal securities laws apply to non-covered securities
as well as covered securities. So the real question here is going to be SLUSA's
coverage because, Rule 10b-5 applies to non-covered securities. The Court is
well over the bridge about not requiring that it be the plaintiff's own
purchases or sales that are what the inquiry focuses on.
Justice
Scalia replied that, while it doesn't have to be the plaintiff's, but it has to
be somebody's. Chief Justice Roberts remarked that the fraud did not go to the
purchase and sales of the covered securities; it went to the CDs.
Responding
to Justice Kennedy’s question on what would be the simplest formulation of the
test if the Court were to reverse the Fifth Circuit, Mr. Clement said that the
simplest, narrowest way to decide this case is to say that when there is a
misrepresentation and a false promise to purchase covered securities for the
benefit of the plaintiffs, then the "in connection with" standard is
required.
Elaine Goldenberg, Assistant
to the Solicitor General, as amicus curiae, supporting the petitioners, said
the Government agreed
with the narrow formulation that Mr. Clement had given, that the issue in this
case is a false promise to purchase covered securities using the fraud victims'
money in a way that they are told is going to benefit them, and that that is a
classic securities fraud.
Justice
Kagan asked if the Government could satisfy the test that this the kind of
representation that could affect somebody. It doesn't have to be the victim of
the fraud, it can be somebody else, but that could affect somebody's decision
to buy or sell or hold covered securities. Ms. Goldenberg said yes, adding that
here there is a major effect on investor confidence, specifically with respect
to covered securities in several different ways. If people see that lies of the
kind here where someone is telling someone else I am going to buy covered
securities and it is going to benefit you are being made, then people are less
likely to go to their broker and say here is some money, go out on the market
and buy me some securities
It is a
lie that goes to the mechanism by which the securities markets operate, which
is the purchases and sales, she emphasized, and it makes it less likely for
people to be willing to believe that when they engage in purchases and sales,
that something's really is going to happen, and the person is going to respond.
Chief
Justice Roberts pointed out that nobody is suggesting that the SEC can't take
action with respect to the non-covered securities. So, to the extent there's
diminished confidence in the securities markets, the SEC has all the tools
available to address that. The
question is the different one under SLUSA.
Justice
Scalia returned to the problem of the
text of the statute, There has been no
purchase or sale here.
Thomas
Goldstein, for the respondents, asked
the Court to write an opinion affirming and adopting the following rule: that a
false promise to purchase securities for one's self in which no other person
will have an interest is not a material misrepresentation in connection with
the purchase or sale of covered securities. The other side has asked you to
adopt a rule that has never been advocated by the SEC in any other proceeding; noted
counsel for the respondents, and it has never been adopted by any Court.
And there are good reasons for that, he
added.. Their theory is that what happened here is that there was a promise to
buy covered securities that would be for the benefit of someone else. The plaintiffs
here bought something that Congress specifically excluded from preclusion under
SLUSA, argued Mr. Goldstein..
Justice
Anthony Kennedy asked what if a broker says, "Give me $100,000 and I will
buy covered securities," and then he just pockets it and and flees. The
Justice did not see how this case is
that much different. They say that we were going to invest in CDs and the CDs
will be backed by purchase of the securities that we will purchase for you.
Mr.
Goldstein said that the critical difference is in the definition of "purchase." The reason that the broker example is
securities fraud is the definition of a purchase includes pledging the stocks.
That is really important. And it tracks with the Court's holding that "in
connection with" reaches as far as frauds that would have an effect on the
regulated market.
Justice
Sonia Sotomayor noted that if someone tells me, sell your securities, give me
the money, I will buy securities for myself and give you a fixed rate of return
later, I think that is in connection with the purchase and sale of securities
even though it's not legally purchased for my benefit, reasoned the Justice..
Mr.
Goldstein argued that the key feature is that you can understand why it is that
the market cannot function if your stockbroker is making promises about buying
and selling securities.
This is a bank in the instant case, he said, a bank that does not issue covered
securities in any way because it is a foreign bank. It issues only the
non-covered securities that Congress specifically excluded.
Mr.
Goldstein concluded that this was not material to any purchase or sale. We have
this idea from the National Securities Markets Improvements Act that the States
regulate non-covered securities, he contended, and so we are going to say that
the preclusive effect of SLUSA does not reach these things like the CDs that we
leave to regulation by the State. So this case clearly falls very easily within
the text of SLUSA as being not precluded.