The Russell 3000 has been involved in a total of 2,616 material litigation cases filed with various US federal courts since January 1, 2016, based on an analysis of Audit Analytics’ litigation database.1 Similar to our last analysis, the most common natures-of-suit (NOS) for the Russell 3000’s litigation includes securities, patents, antitrust violations, breaches of contracts, and stockholder suits.
Let’s take a closer look at the top five NOS, in order from least to greatest.
- Stockholder Suits: There were a total of 155 cases naming a member of the Russell 3000 as a party that were filed under NOS 160, Stockholder Suits. As of July 25, 2019, 85 of these cases have closed and 70 are still open.
- Other Contract: A member of the Russell 3000 was named as a party in 158 breach of contract cases, of which 69 are closed and 89 are still open.
- Antitrust: There were 176 antitrust cases that named a member of the Russell 3000 as a party. 85 of these were class actions. Of the 176 total antitrust cases, 62 cases have closed, leaving 114 open as of July 25, 2019.
- Patent: The Russell 3000 was involved in a total of 580 patent cases between January 1, 2016 and July 25, 2019. 310 cases have closed, leaving 270 still ongoing.
- Securities: There were a total of 874 securities cases filed since January 1, 2016, where a member of the Russell 3000 was a party. As of July 25, 2019, 462 of these cases have closed, leaving 412 still open and ongoing. Of the 874 cases, 713 are securities class actions. Of the closed securities class actions, 23 of the cases were consolidated or transferred to another docket that is still ongoing.
The closed securities class action cases had a variety of outcomes. The most common outcome was voluntarily dismissal (56.6%), followed by dismissed (26.4%) and judgment in favor of the defendants (4.9%). Approximately 7.1% of closed securities class actions were settled. Other outcomes were much less common, such as a remand to state court (2.7%) or a dismissal due to administrative reasons (1.37%).
For more information on this analysis or our Litigation database, please contact us by emailing info@auditanalytics.com or call 508-476-7007.
1. Based on a download from July 25, 2019. ↩