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Securities Class Action

Encyclopedia of Law and Economics

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Definition

Securities class actions (SCAs) are lawsuits brought before a court on behalf of a group of investors, whose rights have allegedly been violated by the company in which they have a stake. Usually, allegations concern the fact that the company and some of its officers violated federal or state securities laws. In this article, we overview the procedural characteristics of SCAs in the USA and other countries that have established this type of legal remedy, discussing their role as compensation, deterrence, market regulation, and corporate governance tools.

Introduction

This article overviews the main features of securities class actions (SCAs, hereafter), both in the USA and in other countries, discussing their role as compensation, deterrence, market regulation, and corporate governance tools. Relying on empirical contributions that investigated the relationship between the event of an SCA and target companies’ behavior, this contribution supports the view according to which...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Management and Statistics (DEMS), University of Milano-Bicocca and Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Economics, Psychology and Social Sciences (CISEPS-Unimib), Milan, Italy

    Lucia dalla Pellegrina

  2. Dep. of Law, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Margherita Saraceno

Authors
  1. Lucia dalla Pellegrina
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  2. Margherita Saraceno
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucia dalla Pellegrina .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Dept DiGSPES, Univ del Piemonte Orientale Dept DiGSPES, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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dalla Pellegrina, L., Saraceno, M. (2021). Securities Class Action. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_729-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_729-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Securities Class Action
    Published:
    12 May 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_729-2

  2. Original

    Securities Class Action
    Published:
    22 November 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_729-1

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