Amgen Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (568 U.S. 455)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 27, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 568 U.S. 455 · 133 S. Ct. 1184
- Decided
- February 27, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case involves a securities-fraud complaint filed by Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (Connecticut Retirement) against biotechnology company Amgen Inc. and several of its officers (collectively, Amgen). Seeking class-action certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, Connecticut Retirement invoked the “fraud-on-the-market” presumption endorsed by this Court in Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U. S. 224 (1988), and recognized most recently in Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U. S. 804 (2011). The fraud-on-the-market premise is that the price of a security traded in an efficient market will reflect all publicly available information about a company; accordingly, a buyer of the security may be presumed to have relied on that information in purchasing the security. Amgen has conceded the efficiency of the market for the securities at issue and has not contested the public character of the allegedly fraudulent statements on which Connecticut Retirement’s complaint is based. Nor does Amgen here dispute that Connecticut Retirement meets all of the class-action prerequisites stated in Rule 23(a): (1) the alleged class “is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable”; (2) “there are questions of law or fact common to the class”; (3) Connecticut Retirement’s claims are “typical of…
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