Justia Business Law Opinion Summaries

Standing alone, a general disclaimer (still less a general merger clause) is not sufficient as a matter of law to preclude reasonable reliance on material factual misrepresentations, even by a sophisticated investor. FIH appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing federal securities law claims against defendants. The district court concluded as a matter of law that FIH could not have reasonably relied on the alleged misrepresentations, because such reliance was precluded by a general merger clause in Foundation's agreement, incorporated by reference into the subscription agreements by which FIH had invested in Foundation. However, the Second Circuit held that the merger clause did not as a matter of law preclude FIH's reasonable reliance on the alleged misrepresentations. The court also held that the district court did not err nor abuse its discretion in excluding as untimely an expert report. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "FIH, LLC v. Foundation Capital Partners, LLC" on Justia Law

Total Wine challenged provisions of Connecticut’s Liquor Control Act and regulations as preempted by the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1. Connecticut’s “post and hold” provisions require state-licensed manufacturers, wholesalers, and out-of-state permittees to post a “bottle price” or “can price” and a “case price” each month with the Department of Consumer Protection for each alcoholic product that the wholesaler intends to sell during the following month; they may “amend” their posted prices to “match” competitors’ lower prices but are obligated to “hold” their prices at the posted price (amended or not) for a month. Connecticut’s minimum-retail-price provisions require that retailers sell to customers at or above a statutorily defined “[c]ost,” which is not defined as the retailer’s actual cost. The post-and-hold number supplies the central component of “[c]ost” and largely dictates the price at which Connecticut retailers must sell their alcoholic products. The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of the complaint. Connecticut’s minimum-retail-price provisions, compelling only vertical pricing arrangements among private actors, are not preempted. The post-and-hold provisions were not preempted because they “do not compel any agreement” among wholesalers, but only individual action. The court also upheld a price discrimination prohibition as falling outside the scope of the Sherman Act. View "Connecticut Fine Wine and Spirits LLC v. Seagull" on Justia Law

US Bank appealed the district court's dismissal of its second amended consolidated complaint as untimely. The Second Circuit affirmed and held that ACE Secs. Corp. v. DB Structured Prods., Inc., 25 N.Y.3d 581 (2015), and Deutsche Bank Nat'l Tr. Co. v. Quicken Loans Inc., 810 F.3d 861, 868 n.8 (2d Cir. 2015), governed U.S. Bank's contractual claims in this case.The court held that the district court properly granted summary judgment to GreenPoint where the first two causes of action for breach of contract were untimely under settled New York law, because they were filed over six years after the statute of limitations began running. The court also held that the district court properly dismissed the third cause of action for indemnification under section 9 of the Flow Mortgage Loan Purchase and Warranties Agreement, because U.S. Bank's claim was in reality a repackaged version of its breach of contract claims. Finally, the court held that the fourth cause of action for breach of the indemnification agreements did relate back to the original filing for claims based on any of the Trusts, and was therefore untimely asserted. View "Lehman XS Trust v. Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc." on Justia Law

The Second Circuit reversed the tax court's decision upholding 2008 tax deficiencies identified by the Commissioner upon application of the substance‐over‐form doctrine to recharacterize various lawful tax‐avoiding transactions as tax‐generating events for petitioners, their adult sons, a family trust, and a family‐controlled corporation. Specifically, petitioners challenged the tax court's decision to uphold a tax deficiency against them based on the Commissioner's recharacterization of Summa's tax‐deductible commission payments to a DISC as taxable dividends to Summa shareholders.The court held that the Commissioner was not precluded from defending the challenged recharacterization, but the substance‐over‐form doctrine did not support recharacterization of Summa's DISC commission payments as constructive dividends to its shareholders. Therefore, the court reversed the portion of the judgment holding petitioners liable for $77,850 in 2008 income taxes. View "Benenson v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Sleepyʹs purchased beds from the Select Comfort for resale in Sleepyʹs stores and suspected that Select Comfort was disparaging Sleepyʹs stores and the particular line of Select Comfort beds it sold. Sleepy’s sued, alleging slander per se, breach of contract, unfair competition, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and the Lanham Act. After a bench trial, the district court dismissed. On remand, a different district judge entered a judgment for Select Comfort on the merits and concluded that attorneyʹs fees were warranted because the case was ʺexceptionalʺ under the Lanham Act. The Second Circuit vacated the dismissal of Sleepyʹs slander claims. That dismissal had been on the ground that the publication element cannot be met under New York law when the statement in question is only made to the plaintiffʹs representatives--”secret shoppers” sent into Select Comfort stores by Sleepy’s. The Second Circuit remanded for a determination of whether the plaintiff consented to the slanderous statements by engaging the secret shoppers. The district court was directed to apply the “Octane Fitness” standard for evaluating whether a Lanham Act claim is ʺexceptional.ʺ The district court erred by not sufficiently explaining or justifying the amount of the defendantsʹ attorneyʹs fees. View "Sleepy's LLC v. Select Comfort Wholesale Corp." on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action alleging that defendants conspired to boycott Anderson and drive it out of business, in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act. The court reviewed the evidence in light of the totality of the circumstances and under the "tends to exclude" standard under Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 588 (1986), and held that the district court correctly ruled that Anderson failed to offer sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that defendants entered into such an unlawful agreement. In this case, defendants refused to pay Anderson's proposed delivery surcharge and found other wholesalers to deliver their magazines. The court also held that the district court correctly ruled that defendants did not suffer an antitrust injury and thus lacked antitrust standing to pursue counterclaims. View "Anderson News, LLC v. American Media, Inc." on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Second Circuit certified the following question to the New York Court of Appeals: Does a merchant comply with New York's General Business Law 518 so long as the merchant posts the total‐dollars‐and‐cents price charged to credit card users? View "Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman" on Justia Law

BikerGear filed suit against FedEx, accusing FedEx of fraudulently marking up the weights of packages shipped by BikerGear and overcharging BikerGear for Canadian customers, in violation of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 (ICCTA), 49 U.S.C. 13708(b), and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(c). The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the ICCTA claim on the pleadings, and the district court's grant of summary judgment for FedEx and dismissal of BikerGear's substantive RICO claims. The court held that (1) Section 13708 of the ICCTA requires shipping documents to truthfully disclose the charges that a motor carrier in fact assesses, and prohibits a motor carrier from stating it will charge one amount when in reality it charges another; and (2) where, as here, the RICO persons and the RICO enterprise were corporate parents and wholly‐owned subsidiaries that "operate within a unified corporate structure" and were "guided by a single corporate consciousness," the mere fact of separate incorporation, without more, did not satisfy RICO's distinctness requirement under Section 1962(c). View "U1IT4Less Inc. v. FedEx Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a putative class action alleging that Uber engaged in illegal price fixing. After the district court denied Uber's motion to compel arbitration, holding that plaintiff did not have reasonably conspicuous notice of and did not unambiguously manifest assent to Uber's Terms of Service when he registered. The Second Circuit vacated the district court's judgment, holding that the Uber App provided reasonably conspicuous notice of the Terms of Service as a matter of California law, and plaintiff's assent to arbitration was unambiguous in light of the objectively reasonable notice of the terms. The court remanded to the district court to consider whether defendants have waived their rights to arbitration and for any further proceedings. View "Meyer v. Uber Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a shareholder in three public companies, filed suit seeking disgorgement of "short-swing" profits under Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78p(b), from investment entities controlled by Carl C. Icahn. The district court dismissed plaintiff's actions on behalf of the companies under Rule 12(b)(6). The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal, holding that plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that Icahn failed to disgorge all of the premiums received for writing (selling) the put options. In this case, the complaint did not state a claim for relief because it relied exclusively on comparisons to options traded on the open market that have no meaningful similarities to the options at issue here. View "Olagues v. Icahn" on Justia Law