Johnson Fistel Blog

Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued new guidance on proxy voting which has been characterized as an attempt to hold proxy advisors more accountable to public company stockholders. Proxy advisors, such as Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co., advise stockholders on how to vote in corporate elections and key topics…

1. Where were you born and what makes that city special? I was born in McDonough, Georgia, which is just south of Atlanta, Georgia. McDonough is a special place because it is a smaller town, but yet, it is still within reach of a large city. With that, I was able to enjoy the conveniences…

A data breach to Capital One servers in March 2019 exposed the personal information of nearly 106 million of the bank’s customers and applicants. In March 2019, Paige Thompson, a hacker and a former employee of Amazon’s cloud-computing division, gained access to personal information related to credit card applications from 2005 to early 2019 for…

Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution in which the two parties agree not to take their dispute to court, but instead to resolve the dispute by hiring an arbitrator to hear both sides. Many consumer contracts accompany mandatory arbitration clauses, which force consumers to bring their disputes to a privatized justice system that…

This week, a Ninth Circuit three-judge panel overturned most of an Arizona district court’s dismissal of a securities fraud class action brought by two Oklahoma public pension funds against Defendants-Appellees Todd Davis (founder and CEO), Hilary Schneider (former President), and LifeLock, Inc. (“LifeLock”).  The case is Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System et al., v.…

On June 27, 2019, the Honorable Denise J. Casper, United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, granted final approval of an $18.75 million all-cash settlement in Gerneth v. Chiasma, Inc., a class action charging Chiasma, Inc. and certain of its executives, directors, and underwriters with violations of Sections 11 and 15 of the Securities…

On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court rejected defendants’ petition for writ of certiorari to consider a securities fraud class action that sought a determination as to whether, for loss causation purposes, a plaintiff must link a company’s stock drop to a disclosure of an alleged fraud. The case is First Solar Inc. et al.…

Feeding San Diego recently promoted a fundraising campaign called Food from the Bar.  It involved local law firms joining in a friendly competition to raise money, volunteer, and help ensure that local children and families can get the nutrition they need during the summer months. Johnson Fistel is proud to be recognized as taking first…

Last summer, the California State Legislature enacted what appears to be the most comprehensive and stringent data privacy statute in the country. Known as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, or CCPA, the new statute introduces a number of sweeping reforms that are intended to change the manner in which businesses in California collect,…