Judge Katherine Forrest
City of Miami General Employees’ and Sanitation Employees’ Retirement Trust moved for class certification of all investors in Smart Technologies Inc.’s common stock acquired pursuant to or traceable to its offering materials, and who were damaged. The court found that two categories of investors, non U.S. purchasers and aftermarket purchasers, had to be excluded from the class. The court reasoned that the Supreme Court’s prohibition on extraterritoriality in Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank, applied equally to Securities Act claims and thus non U.S. purchasers could not be included in the class. For aftermarket purchasers, the court reasoned that it was well-settled that purchasers of securities after the initial public offering, did not have standing to maintain plaintiff’s alleged claim. The court also found that investors who purchased Smart stock after the Nov. 9, 2010 corrective disclosure and investors who purchased stock and sold them prior to the disclosure were atypical, and also had to be excluded. Thus the court granted the motion for class certification limiting the class to U.S. purchasers of Smart stock in the initial public offering.
