California Corporate & Securities Law

On several occasions, I have written about whether scienter is required under Corporations Code Section 25401.  That question surfaced again last week in Judge Gonzolo P. Curiel's ruling on the defendants' motion to dismiss federal and state...

Both the Securities Act of 1933 and the California Corporate Securities Law of 1968 provide similar, but not the same, definitions of a "security".  See Making A List Of Securities And Checking It Twice. Although these lists are expansive, courts...

Theranos' anni horrorum began in October 2015 with the publication of a story by investigative reporter John Carreyrou at The Wall Street Journal.  Lawsuits and government investigations ensued. Although the Theranos recently announced agreements...

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. (Penguin Press, 2012) by Professor David Nasaw is one of several books that I am currently reading.  As a securities lawyer, the following sentence gave me pause:

Anyone who has studied securities regulation since 1946 should be familiar with the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of a "security" as enunciated by Justice Frank Murphy in S.E.C. v. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946). That test asks "whether the scheme...

Corporations Code Section 25401 is California's basic securities antifraud statute: