Freeman Group v. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC

540 F. App'x 33
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedSeptember 25, 2013
DocketNo. 12-3642-cv
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 540 F. App'x 33 (Freeman Group v. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Freeman Group v. Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, 540 F. App'x 33 (2d Cir. 2013).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff-Appellant The Freeman Group (“Freeman”) appeals from a judgment entered on September 6, 2012 by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Batts, /.). That judgment enforced a Memorandum and Order dated September 4, 2012, which granted the Defendants-Appellees’ motion to dismiss Freeman’s claims under sections 11, 12(a)(2), & 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 (“the '33 Act”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 77k, 77Z(a)(2), & 77o. On appeal, Freeman argues that the district court should not have dismissed those claims because Freeman’s Amended Complaint (“the complaint”) had plausibly alleged that the offering documents for five securities issued and underwritten by the Defendants-Appellees: (1) misstated the exposure of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (“RBS”) to sub-prime assets; (2) falsely claimed that RBS had effective risk controls; (3) failed to disclose that RBS had maintained an inadequate capital base; and (4) attributed nonexistent benefits to the acquisition of a part of ABN AMRO Bank N.V. (“ABN AMRO”). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the relevant facts, the procedural history, and the issues presented for review.

“We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint under [Federal] Rule [of Civil Procedure] 12(b)(6), accepting all factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Litwin v. Blackstone Grp., L.P., 634 F.3d [36]*36706, 715 (2d Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). On a motion to dismiss a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), a court must assess whether the complaint “contain[s] sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.

In general, §§ 11 and 12(a)(2) of the '33 Act impose liability on those who issue and underwrite a security whenever that security’s registration statement or prospectus (collectively, its “offering documents”) contains: “(1) a material misrepresentation; (2) a material omission in contravention of an affirmative legal disclosure obligation; or (3) a material omission of information that is necessary to prevent existing disclosures from being misleading.” Litwin, 634 F.3d at 715-16; see also 15 U.S.C. §§ 77k & 77i(a)(2). Section 15, in turn, imposes liability on anyone who “controls” an entity liable under §§ 11 & 12(a)(2). Id. § 77o. A plaintiff cannot prevail on a claim under § 15 without first showing a violation of § 11 or § 12(a)(2). Dodds v. Cigna Sec., Inc., 12 F.3d 346, 349 n. 1 (2d Cir.1993).

Freeman first contends that the offering documents for five securities failed to specify that, in 2005 and 2006, RBS had accumulated a significant concentration of subprime assets — i.e., financial assets secured, either directly or indirectly, by subprime mortgages— something the Defendants-Appellees had a legal obligation to disclose. We conclude that the Defendants-Appellees’ disclosures satisfied their legal obligations. Specifically, the securities’ offering documents disclosed exposure to tens of billions of pounds worth of secu-ritized assets, including “certain U.S. se-curitisations of residential mortgages,” and identified whether the risks and rewards associated with these assets were completely held, partially held, or had been transferred by RBS. J. App’x at 794. The offering documents further described those assets, explained how RBS had calculated their value, disclosed the dangers it foresaw, and provided an account of how those dangers could affect the assets’ value. While these statements did not disclose the percentage of the relevant securitizations that included subprime mortgages, we have previously held that offering documents need not identify every type of asset a security contains so long as they provide “extensive descriptions” of the security’s contents that are “broad enough to cover” the type of asset at issue. Hunt v. Alliance N. Am. Gov’t Income Trust, Inc., 159 F.3d 723, 730-31 (2d Cir.1998). In Hunt, we declined to require more particularized disclosures even though the specific type of asset at issue allegedly posed “far greater risk[s]” than the general category of assets described. Id. at 730. Because the offering documents here extensively described the “securitisations of residential mortgages” that RBS held, we conclude that the Defendants-Appel-lees had no further obligation to identify the portion of those securitizations that included subprime residential mortgages.

Nor did the offering documents need to disclose RBS’s subprime assets in order “to prevent existing disclosures from being misleading.” Litwin, 634 F.3d at 715-16. First, the offering- documents’ separate descriptions of an RBS subsid[37]*37iary’s practices when originating loans, did not indicate anything about the types of loans included in RBS’s securitizations. Moreover, the offering documents’ claims that RBS had strong credit quality, that it had few problem loans, and that its risks remained stable all qualified as subjective evaluations of the quality of RBS’s assets. Such evaluations did not indicate that RBS held no subprime assets. Instead, they could have just as easily indicated that the Defendants-Appellees regarded the sub-prime assets RBS held as strong, unproblematic, and stable. Thus, the statements on which Freeman relies would not have led a reasonable investor to conclude that RBS’s “securitisations of residential mortgages” did not include any subprime assets.1

Freeman next argues that the securities’ offering documents falsely claimed to implement effective risk management procedures. Rather than cite to any example of how RBS disregarded the extensive procedures disclosed in the offering documents, Freeman instead contends that testimony given by RBS executives over two years later reveals that RBS’s risk-management procedures were somehow inadequate. But the fact that RBS executives changed their views with the benefit of hindsight does not plausibly indicate that RBS disregarded the procedures it had implemented without that benefit. Moreover, insofar as Freeman challenges the offering documents’ characterization of RBS’s risk-management procedures as effective, this Court has frequently recognized that similar assurances of efficacy qualify as opinions, which cannot give rise to liability under §§ 11 & 12(a)(2) unless “both objectively false and disbelieved by the defendant at the time [they were] expressed.” Fait v. Regions Fin. Corp., 655 F.3d 105, 110 (2d Cir.2011); see also EGA, Local 134 IBEW Joint Pension Trust of Chi. v. JP Morgan Chase Co.,

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540 F. App'x 33, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freeman-group-v-royal-bank-of-scotland-group-plc-ca2-2013.