Panthera Investment Fund, L.P. v. H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC, No. 19-56048 (9th Cir. 2021)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a securities fraud action against an investment bank, holding that the complaint failed sufficiently to allege scienter. Plaintiff's complaint stemmed from the bank's handling of MannKind's stock price. After an investment bank analyst published a report setting a target price of $7 per share for the company's stock, the stock surged 26 percent that day. Later that evening, the bank announced that it would act as the placing agent for a dilutive offering that priced that same stock at $6 per share. The stock price declined the next day.
The panel explained that the complaint did not offer a plausible motive for the bank’s actions or provide compelling and particularized allegations about scienter, and thus it did not support the required strong inference that the defendant intentionally made false or misleading statements or acted with deliberate recklessness. In this case, the panel reasoned that the most plausible inferences are that someone failed to put MannKind on the watch list, failed to properly check the watch list, or failed to realize that a conflict existed when approving the report.
Court Description: Securities Fraud. Affirming the district court’s dismissal of a securities fraud action against an investment bank, the panel held that the complaint failed sufficiently to allege scienter. The panel held that because the complaint did not offer a plausible motive for the bank’s actions or provide compelling and particularized allegations about scienter, it did not support the required strong inference that the defendant intentionally made false or misleading statements or acted with deliberate recklessness.
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