Professor Joseph Grundfest comments on the continued decline in the number of class-action lawsuits filed for Accounting Web.

Fewer federal class-action securities lawsuits were filed during the first half of the year over the preceding six-month period, and the decrease marks the seventh consecutive six-month period of filings below the historical average noted between 1997 and 2014, according to a recent report.

However, filings in the 9th District (much of the western United States) almost doubled over the last half of 2014, and class-action filings against companies with headquarters outside of the United States rose about 24 percent. The western case influx is the result of increases in the technology and industrial sectors, according to the report, Securities Class-Action Filings 2015 Midyear Assessment, issued by Cornerstone Research and Stanford University Law School’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse.

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“Securities class actions continue to percolate at a relatively low level, whether measured by the number of cases filed or the dollar amounts at stake,” professor Joseph Grundfest, a former US Securities and Exchange Commission member who is director of Stanford Law School’s clearinghouse, said in a prepared statement. “The interesting question is ‘why?’ Some observers point to high stock price valuations and the lack of volatility in equity markets. Others point to the fact that many of the major accounting scandals now appear to be happening abroad. A combination of both factors could well be at work.”