On June 28, 2017, Bruce Berman and Steve Blickensderfer posted in this space about the Supreme Court’s recent decision in California Public Employees Retirement System v. ANZ Securities, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 2042 (2017). In that case, the Supreme Court held that American Pipe tolling does not apply to the federal securities laws’ statutes of repose.

On Aug. 2, 2017, the Third Circuit decided an appeal in which the same issue was implicated.  Naturally, it followed the ANZ Securities decision: “It is now clear that in the light of [ANZ Securities] that the American Pipe tolling rule cannot be invoked to toll the running of time under the statutes of repose at issue in these cases and that appellees’ Exchange Act claims therefore were untimely.” Therefore, the Third Circuit reversed the district court’s order denying the appellants’ motion to dismiss the Exchange Act claims and remanded for dismissal of those claims.

North Sound Capital LLC, et al. v. Merck & Co., Inc., et al., 2017 WL 3278886 (3d Cir. Aug. 2, 2017).