Last year was an unprecedented year for securities
litigation due, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although filings
of new federal class actions were down 22% in 2020 versus
2019,1 we saw a spate of new lawsuits related to
COVID-19, as well as notable filings related to special purpose
acquisition companies ("SPACs") and cryptocurrency. We
expect these trends to continue in 2021. We also anticipate a
potentially landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of the United
States in Arkansas Teacher Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Group,
Inc Sachs Group, Inc., 955 F.3d 254 (2d Cir. 2020), cert.
granted, 2020 WL 7296815 (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020) (No. 20- 222)
("Arkansas v. Goldman"), in which the Court is
expected to resolve long-standing questions about the standard for
rebutting at the class certification stage the presumption of
reliance in securities fraud cases established in Basic
Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988)
("Basic").
