Kevin LaCroix (LexBlog China)

Over the last few days, at least three U.S.-listed China-based companies have been hit with securities class action lawsuits after Chinese government regulatory crackdowns that targeted the defendant companies’ industries or the companies’ business approach. These developments not only highlight the kinds of regulatory risks all companies face, but also underscore the risks that companies...

Last summer, I noted on this blog the filing of what turned out to be a total of four separate securities class action lawsuits that were filed against Chinese internet-business firms following a crackdown on their activities by the Chinese cybersecurity regulator. I noted at the time that though these four cases involved circumstances arguably...

On November 12, 2021, a Chinese court entered a 2.46-billion-yuan ($385.26 million) verdict in a collective investor action against Kangmei Pharmaceuticals, certain of the company’s executives and the company’s outside auditor. The action was the first of its kind in China. The claimants in the case had alleged that the company had engaged in massive...

In one of the largest shareholder derivative lawsuit settlements ever, involving a very unusual derivative claim under Cayman Island law prosecuted in a U.S. court on behalf of a China-based Cayman Islands company, the parties to the Renren derivative litigation have agreed to settle the case for at least $300 million. The settlement is subject...

One of the more interesting developments in recent years has been the global rise of collective procedural mechanisms for aggrieved investors to seek redress from corporate parties for disclosure misrepresentations or omissions. In that vein, the recent revision of the securities laws of the People’s Republic of China are particularly interesting.   As discussed in...

In the latest sign that coronavirus-related securities class action lawsuit filings will continue into the New Year, on January 20, 2021, a plaintiff shareholder filed a COVID-19-related securities suit against the Chinese Internet social media company Lizhi, Inc. The lawsuit relates to the coronavirus outbreak now more than a year ago in China, and to...

In the latest securities suit related to the coronavirus outbreak, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a U.S. securities class action lawsuit against a Chinese real estate firm whose American Depositary Shares (ADSs) are listed on the NYSE, based on allegations that the company’s January 2020 IPO offering documents failed to disclose the impact of the...

With the news about the coronavirus outbreak dominating the headlines, other important stories have faded into the background — though they definitely have not gone away. Among these important continuing stories is the U.S. trade war with China. The frontlines of this trade war are on the battlefield of economic competition, which these days includes,...

For some time now, some observers had been predicting that we would be seeing a bunch of data breach-related securities class action lawsuits, but the predicted wave never seemed to materialize. However, with a recent uptick in these kinds of cases, that could be changing. On October 8, 2018, in the latest of these kinds...

According to the latest update on the Coinschedule website (here), there have been a total of 228 initial coin offerings so far this year through mid-October, raising a total of over $3.6 billion. At least five of this year’s ICOs have raised over $100 million. This burgeoning activity notwithstanding, ICOs are at the center of...

As I learned during my recent visit to the country, just about everything about China is big. It is the world’s most populous country. China leads the world’s economic growth by size and speed. It is also one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing insurance markets. According to a June 10, 2015 Law 360 article...

When Chinese regulators hit GlaxoSmithKline with a $489 million penalty last month – the largest corporate penalty ever in China – it set off alarm bells around the world. Among other things it sent out a “wake-up call for global companies that assumed that their main regulatory risk is in their home countries,” according to...

Cybersecurity has been a hot button issue for quite a while, but the U.S. Department of Justice ratcheted things up last week when it announced the indictment of five Chinese military officers for hacking into U.S. companies’ computers to steal trade secrets and other sensitive business information. U.S. prosecutors clearly believe the intrusions were serious...

In what is as far as I know the first determination of liability in connection with the recent wave of litigation filed against U.S. listed Chinese companies, a Hong Kong-based arbitration panel has entered an award in favor of an investment unit of C.V. Starr of over $77 million against China MediaExpress Holdings and related...

On March 30, 2012, in a decision that may highlight the extent to which Canadian courts are increasingly willing to enforce securities laws in ways that may have extraterritorial effects, the Ontario Court of Appeals held that the liability regime under the Ontario Securities Act applies to Canadian Solar, a company whose shares trade only...

Despite marked alleged differences between revenues and profits reported in China Century Dragon Media’s U.S. IPO prospectus and the equivalent figures reported in its Chinese operations’ filings in China, a federal court has granted the dismissal motion in the securities class action lawsuit filed against the U.S.-listed Chinese company.   On November 30, 2011, Central...

In what is as far as I know the first outright dismissal motion grant in the wave of cases filed against U.S.-Listed Chinese companies that began last year, on October 6, 2011, Southern District of New York Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in the securities class action lawsuit filed against...

As numerous commentators have noted, one of the most distinctive litigation developments over the last twelve months has been the emergence of U.S. securities litigation against Chinese companies that obtained their listings on U.S. exchanges that a “reverse merger” with a publicly traded U.S. shell company.   Given the prominence of these issues, I am...

The short week after the July 4th holiday is usually quiet. There certainly did seem to be less traffic on the roads. But nevertheless, there was news of note this past week on several stories we have been following, as discussed below. The traffic on the roads may have slowed but the circulation on the...

Even though the story has been brewing for months, the mainstream media and the SEC suddenly seem to have decided that the alleged accounting frauds involving certain U.S.-traded Chinese companies are the central story of the moment. You can hardly pick up the business papers or turn on the television these days without encountering some...

One of the most distinct securities litigation filing trends during the last twelve months has been the filing of securities class action law suits against U.S.-listed companies based or operating in China. With a phenomenon this well-established, it is only natural that the trend should begin to evolve, which seems to be what has happened...

Among 2010 securities class action lawsuit filing trends are two phenomena that emerged in the second-half of the year – the flurry of lawsuits filed against for-profit education companies and the proliferation of suits involving companies domiciled in China. These two filing trends converged in a single case filed last week against a Chinese for-profit...

For reasons I am sure they find good and sufficient, Chinese companies have been seeking listings on the U.S. securities exchanges. The Chinese companies (or at least some of them) have also been discovering an added side-effect of a U.S. listing – that is, exposure to a class action lawsuit under the U.S. securities laws....