Heightened pleading standards of 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act only apply in private securities fraud actions and not those brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
To plead scienter sufficiently in a securities fraud suit, the Securities and Exchange Commission need only satisfy the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b) and not the heightened pleading standards of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California concluded Feb. 1 in an unpublished order (SEC v. ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., C.D. Cal., No. SACV99-1016DOC, 2/1/00).
