Defendants win summary judgment victory in 10b-5 securities matter.
Retained by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Plaintiff alleged that the defendants, Allergan and certain of its executives, misrepresented the extent to which one of the company’s products were allegedly more closely associated with a rare form of cancer than products made by other manufacturers. Counsel for Allergan retained Cornerstone Research to support René Stulz of The Ohio State University. Professor Stulz submitted three expert reports addressing issues of loss causation, materiality, and damages.
The Southern District of New York judge found that “[t]here is no evidence that Allergan made a false or misleading statement or omission”
The alleged misrepresentations were purportedly corrected when a French regulatory body ordered the recall of the product from the European market. Plaintiffs sought damages based on Allergan’s stock price decline following that recall.
In her decision granting Defendants’ summary judgment motion and dismissing the action, the Southern District of New York judge found that “[t]here is no evidence that Allergan made a false or misleading statement or omission” and that “[f]ollowing discovery, plaintiff has not in the end produced the required evidence to support its allegations.”
Counsel for Allergan noted that “the judge adopted the defendants’ arguments in her opinion on multiple grounds, including falsity, materiality, and loss causation, and drew heavily on Professor Stulz’s loss causation analysis.”
In February 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this ruling.