I'm not sure you can be effective if you do it reactively with lawsuits; who can afford to sue a Wall Street bank? You need regulations and rules.
Also, the problem is not just misleading statements, but requiring that essential information is included, that it's expressed according to certain common standards, and that it's understandable to common people - not just to Wall Street bankers.
There's a long history of selling bad deals to widows and orphans by confusing them. Currently you can't sell certain things to non-professionals; if they have free speech, can you stop them?
Whether it's understandable doesn't matter, you only need to prove that they intentionally mislead you to get you to sign something detrimental to your interests.
>There's a long history of selling bad deals to widows and orphans by confusing them. Currently you can't sell certain things to non-professionals; if they have free speech, can you stop them?
I'm sure there already are laws that prevent/penalize sellers from conning people.
There is a wide chasm between provably misleading and confusion or lack of information on the readers' side. That's why those communications are regulated, afaik.
> I'm sure there already are laws that prevent/penalize sellers from conning people.
Right, laws and regulations.
1) My point above was that the legal analysts said that the new corporate free speech rights, which the Supreme Court said were Constitutional rights (if I understand correctly), might invalidate those laws.
2) If you look at the recent history of Wall Street fraud, which among other things was the cause of the 2008 Great Recession, those laws and regulations haven't been effective enough.
But then why aren't individuals using this as a defense already?, they have had the free speech rights for much longer.
I don't think individuals are regulated by the SEC, for example. Usually it's corporations that are. What are you thinking of?
In general, not necessarily in finance; but surely there are fields where certified professionals are liable when something goes wrong based on their advice or decisions (say, accounting or civil engineering).
Probably investors or rich customers who get screwed by these statements or a band of normal folks in a class action lawsuit