In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-08585
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation, Judge Liman denied the Rio Defendants’ request to certify a standing ruling for immediate appeal.
The Rio Defendants—Rio Tinto plc, Rio Tinto Limited, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and Arnaud Soirat—could not obtain certification of the earlier statutory-standing ruling for interlocutory review; the plaintiffs’ statutory-standing ruling remained in place.
What happened
In In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation, the Rio Defendants asked the court to allow an immediate appeal of an earlier order that rejected their argument that the plaintiffs lacked statutory standing.
The court said immediate appeals require a controlling legal question, substantial disagreement about the answer, and a likelihood that an appeal would speed up the case. The court found that the Rio Defendants had not shown substantial disagreement about the standing ruling.
Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the motion and directed the clerk to close the motion docket entry.
The detailed version
- In re Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Securities Litigation · No. 1:20-cv-08585
- Lewis Liman
- Oct. 24, 2022
Background
Defendants Rio Tinto plc, Rio Tinto Limited, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and Arnaud Soirat, referred to as the Rio Defendants, moved under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) to certify the court’s September 2, 2022 order for interlocutory review. That earlier order denied their motion to dismiss for lack of statutory standing.
Legal standard
Section 1292(b) permits a district court to certify an order for an immediate appeal only when the order involves a controlling question of law, there is substantial ground for disagreement about the answer, and an immediate appeal may materially advance the end of the litigation. The court explained that this procedure is an exception to the general rule against piecemeal appeals and that the moving party must establish all three requirements. Even when the requirements are met, district judges have broad discretion to deny certification.
Court’s analysis
The court concluded that the Rio Defendants had not shown a substantial ground for disagreement about the statutory-standing ruling. The court described its earlier holding as narrow and not particularly exceptional. It had held that the plaintiffs had statutory standing against the Rio Defendants because the challenged statements directly concerned the company in which the plaintiffs invested and related to the company whose securities they purchased.
The court also stated that its reading of Second Circuit law was consistent with that court’s later decision in Menora Mivtachim Ins. Ltd. v. Frutarom Indus. Ltd. The court explained that the later decision required plaintiffs to have bought or sold a security of the issuer about which the misstatement was made to sue under Section 10(b). The district court said its own earlier decision was, if anything, more restrictive because it additionally required a relationship between the company making the alleged misstatement and the company about which the statement was made.
Disposition
The court denied the Rio Defendants’ motion to certify the September 2, 2022 order for interlocutory review. Because the court found the second certification requirement unsatisfied, it did not consider the first and third requirements. The clerk was directed to close Docket No. 159.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.