Petrobras Court: Opt-Outs Beware

ATTORNEY: MARK B. GOLDSTEIN
POMERANTZ MONITOR NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015
 

As reported in previous issues of the Monitor, Pomerantz is lead counsel in a class action lawsuit against the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras. Lead Plaintiff Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited and additional institutional plaintiffs allege securities fraud violations that stem from a large-scale undisclosed bribery and money-laundering scheme that caused tens of billions of dollars of damages to shareholders. On July 9, 2015, the court denied most of defendants’ motions to dismiss, upholding, most notably all of our Securities and Exchange Act claims. The class includes investors who purchased their Petrobras shares after January 22, 2010.

Some investors had decided to opt out of our class action, and to file individual suits. Defendants moved to dismiss their claims as well; and on October 19, 2015, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York dismissed their claims “to the extent such claims under Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act cover purchases prior to June 2, 2010, on the ground that such claims are barred by the statute of repose.”

In our class action, by contrast, the court upheld claims going back six months earlier, to January 22, 2010. Therefore, by opting out, these individual plaintiffs forfeited six months’ worth of claims.

 The statute of repose for the Exchange Act bars claims brought more than five years after the occurrence of the fraud. The fraud is deemed to have occurred on either the date the investor purchased the stock or the date of the act or transaction constituting the violation.

 Unlike a statute of limitations, the statute of repose is not concerned with when the investor discovers that he or she has a claim for securities fraud. It acts as a bar to all claims under the securities laws and begins to run from the date the investor purchased the security or from the date of the act or transaction constituting the violation. This five year period had not yet run on any of our claims when we brought our class action.

In opposing the motion to dismiss, the opt-out plaintiffs argued that the statute of repose should be tolled (stopped) for the period these plaintiffs were part of the class. In a case called American Pipe the Supreme Court held that such tolling applied to the statute of limitations: “the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of the class.” There currently exists a split among the circuits regarding whether the American Pipe doctrine applies to plaintiffs who elect to opt out of a pending class action prior to a decision on class certification, and a number of district courts, the Sixth Circuit, and the First Circuit have held that tolling of the statute of limitations is not available in such circumstance.

 However, in a case called IndyMac, the Second Circuit held two years ago that the statute of repose under the Exchange Act is not covered by American Pipe tolling. In particular, the Second Circuit ruled, “in contrast to statutes of limitations, statutes of repose create a substantive right in those protected to be free from liability after a legislatively- determined period of time.” The reasoning is that the statute of repose allows issuers and underwriters of securities to know, by a date certain, when all potential claims arising out of a particular securities issuance have been extinguished. This holding was followed by Judge Rakoff when he dismissed the opt-out plaintiffs’ claims covering Petrobras purchases prior to June 2, 2010.

While there may sometimes be good reasons for institutions with large claims to opt out of a class and bring their own actions, they do so at the risk that they will lose some of their claims because of the statute of repose.