The Corporate Supreme Court begins to pay dividends for the Banksters

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions making it tougher to pursue lawsuits may have begun to bear fruit for corporations fighting investor claims or employee litigation.

Where once it was enough to give a defendant “fair notice” of a claim and the grounds on which it rested, the high court’s 2007 holding in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly required an antitrust complaint to contain enough facts to show a claim that is “plausible on its face.” Two years later, in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the court applied Twombly to all federal civil suits.

The Supreme Court rulings mean that someone who wants to sue in federal court “should not subject a defendant to the costs and burdens of litigation when there is no plausible basis for their claims,” Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform, said in an e-mail. The Washington-based business advocacy group filed a friend-of-the- court brief in Twombly.

The rule aided financial-services companies after the February 2008 collapse of the $330 billion auction-rate securities market. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037&sid=aC6mn8oGoboQ

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