In its 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010), the Supreme Court addressed whether Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act applies to a securities transaction involving foreign investors, foreign issuers and/or securities traded on foreign exchanges. The Morrison decision curtailed the extraterritorial application of the federal securities laws by holding that Section 10(b) applies only to (a) transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges or (b) domestic transactions in other securities.
In Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Ficeto, et al., Docket No. 11-0221-cv (2d Cir. Mar. 1, 2012), the Second Circuit addressed for the first time what constitutes a “domestic transaction” in securities not listed on a U.S. exchange. The Court held that, to establish a domestic transaction in securities not listed on a U.S. exchange, plaintiffs must allege facts plausibly showing either that irrevocable liability was incurred or that title was transferred within the United States.
Plaintiffs in Absolute Activist were nine Cayman Island hedge funds (the “Funds”) that had engaged Absolute Capital Management Holdings (“ACM”) to act as their investment manager. Plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that the ACM management defendants engaged in a variation of a pump-and-dump scheme. Specifically, defendants were alleged to have caused the Funds to purchase billions of shares of U.S. penny stocks issued by thinly capitalized U.S. companies – stocks that defendants themselves also owned – and then to have traded those stocks among the Funds in a way that artificially drove up the share value. Defendants thereby were alleged to have profited both from the fees generated through the fraudulent trading activity and the profits they earned when they sold their shares of the penny stocks at a profit to the Funds.