Supreme Court Looks for Middle Ground on Securities Class Actions

USA Today reports on the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments this week in a case that will shape the future of securities class actions in America: "The Supreme Court searched for a compromise Wednesday that would help businesses avoid some class-action lawsuits charging securities fraud without making them virtually extinct. Faced with the real prospect of overturning a 26-year-old precedent permitting class-action cases based on investors' trust in market prices, several justices asked whether it might be better to require that investors prove that the fraud affected the price. Four conservative justices previously had made clear their desire to modify or overturn the 1988 decision. That would take a huge burden off U.S. corporations but make class-action challenges more difficult to bring. During oral arguments in the case of Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, however, both Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts appeared to be searching for a middle ground. Even Justice Antonin Scalia, an opponent of the court's earlier decision in Basic v. Levinson, mused about the court adopting 'Basic writ small.'"