On May 16, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit declined to grant interlocutory review of the District Court’s order granting class certification in Halman Aldubi Provident and Pension Funds Ltd. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Limited, et al., Case No. 20-cv-4660-KSM (E.D. Pa.): a securities action against Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Limited (“Teva”) and certain of its officers and directors.
In the decision on the hotly contested class certification motion, for which the District Court held an evidentiary hearing with the parties’ expert witnesses, the District Court rejected Defendants’ arguments and certified the following class:
All persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Teva securities between October 29, 2015 and August 18, 2020, inclusive, and were damaged thereby. Excluded from the Class are the Defendants; the officers, directors, and affiliates of Teva, at all relevant times; Teva’s employee retirement or benefit plan(s) and their participants or beneficiaries to the extent they purchased or acquired Teva securities through any such plan(s); any entity in which Defendants have or had controlling interest; immediate family members of any excluded person; and the legal representatives, heirs, successors, or assigns of any excluded person or entity.
Defendants thereafter filed a petition pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) seeking interlocutory review of the class certification order on two grounds: (1) that the District Court’s holding that Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd., 561 U.S. 247 (2010), did not bar inclusion of investors who purchased Teva securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange from the class presented a novel legal issue; and (2) that the District Court’s finding that Plaintiffs’ damages model was consistent with his theory of liability and therefore satisfied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement was erroneous. In a precedential opinion, the Third Circuit agreed with Faruqi & Faruqi’s arguments and found that interlocutory review was not appropriate because Morrison “does not relate directly to the requirements that must be met for class certification,” and that it “agree[s] with the District Court’s predominance analysis[.]”
The Third Circuit’s opinion can be found here.