Recently in Securities Category

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) turned its temporary rule banning abusive "naked" short selling of securities permanent earlier this week, just days before it was due to expire on July 31st.  But not everyone is breaking out the champagne. 

Naked shorting, as the invidious practice is called, is selling stocks short without borrowing them first.  Sellers then look to cover positions after the sale.  The temporary rule was put in place as a stopgap measure last year at the time Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were stumbling to demise.  It requires that the broker-dealer, rather than the seller, be responsible for ensuring for delivery within three days after the trade.

Government regulators in the US and Europe have oil market speculators in the crosshairs, and are looking to take them down by imposing sweeping restrictions on how they can trade. 

Apparently, governments on both sides of the pond fear that oil speculation can lead to wildly volatile oil prices, which could derail the nascent economic recovery.  In the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it is interested in lessening the influence of speculative traders, such as hedge funds and investment banks, by putting caps on how much money any one trader can put down on a commodity at any one time.

The moves come as the price of a barrel of oil creeps back up from a 2009 low of nearly $34 to a recent high of around $73 a barrel.  In 2008, the price of oil shot up to $145 a barrel, placing a major burden on the finances of companies and individual consumers alike.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Merck's appeal of a 3rd Circuit decision allowing a shareholder suit over the painkiller Vioxx, in what will likely become an important case for shareholder suits of all kinds.

The question presented is when the two year statute of limitations period for shareholder suits commences.  More precisely, exactly how much notice of wrongdoing is required before the statute begins to run?