Event-Driven Securities Lawsuits an “Important Part” of Filing Surge

D&O Diary’s Kevin LaCroix said “event-driven securities lawsuits,” like the one filed against Marriott over its recent data breach, “represent an important part of the elevated levels of securities suit filings going back into 2016.”

The suit was filed in the Eastern District of New York just one day after the company announced the breach. It alleges the company’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings were misleading because of the data’s vulnerability, which caused a 5.5 percent drop in stock price. LaCroix says this suit is “yet another example of a data breach related securities litigation” after similar lawsuits were filed against Yahoo, Google, and a Chinese hospitality company called Huazhu.

La Croix said that the more event-driven and data breach-related suits are filed, the more people are going to be willing to listen to the “recently renewed call for securities class action litigation reform.” He pointed to a recent report released by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform as an example of the growing call for reform.