As New York commercial practitioners will recall, the U.S. Supreme Court in
Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver Cty. Emps. Ret. Fund held that state and federal courts have concurrent jurisdiction over class actions alleging violations of only the Securities Act of 1933 (the “1933 Act”) and, further, that defendants in such suits filed in state court cannot remove those actions to federal court to avoid state-court jurisdiction.[1] Not surprisingly, this development has led to an increase in the filing of securities claims in state courts.
In the nearly two-and-a-half years since
Cyan, New York courts—and the Commercial Division in particular—have asserted their role in securities litigation under the 1933 Act. For example, as this blog previously covered here and here, Commercial Division justices have denied motions filed by defendants seeking to stay state-court actions pending resolution of later-filed federal securities actions. Those decisions reasoned,