New York – September 15, 2026 -- Federal securities class actions are on pace to reach roughly 236 filings in 2026, surpassing the prior peak set in 2023, after 118 new suits were lodged in the first half of the year, according to NERA Economic Consulting data cited by litigation attorney Thomas Przybylowski. The 2025 dip in filings and a 25 percent drop in plaintiffs' bar attorneys' fees masked a shift in legal targeting rather than a retreat, Przybylowski said.
AI-related suits already exceed all of 2025 after just six months
Eighteen AI-related securities suits were filed in the first half of 2026, surpassing the 17 filed in the entirety of 2025, per NERA data. Przybylowski said plaintiffs are not creating new legal theories but applying existing Rule 10b-5, Section 11 and Section 12 fraud claims to AI capability statements, revenue projections and integration timelines. "Any company whose investor communications lean on AI language needs to treat those statements with the same scrutiny as a revenue forecast," he said.
Tariff, pump-and-dump and private credit cases expand the target list
Cornerstone Research recorded six tariff-related securities suits since August 2025, generally alleging companies overstated their ability to manage tariff impacts, and ten pump-and-dump filings since November 2025, nearly all against non-U.S. issuers. Przybylowski flagged a newer trend as more consequential: private credit lenders are increasingly facing Rule 10b-5 claims over alleged misstatements on portfolio performance and asset valuations, extending securities fraud theories into a lending market unaccustomed to class-action exposure.
State-court '33 Act claims fall to lowest level since 2018 Cyan ruling
Only three Securities Act of 1933 claims were filed in state court through the third quarter of 2025, according to Skadden data, putting the year on track for the lowest annual total since the Supreme Court's 2018 Cyan v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund decision. Przybylowski attributed the decline partly to the Supreme Court's Slack Technologies v. Pirani ruling, which has made such claims harder to plead regardless of forum, reducing the incentive to test the unresolved discovery-stay question at all.
Courts split on crediting pre-discovery expert and short-seller evidence
Plaintiffs are increasingly leaning on expert opinions and short-seller reports to build viable complaints before discovery begins, a strategy that gained traction following a Ninth Circuit decision involving Nvidia Corp. The Fourth Circuit recently affirmed dismissal of a case built on a short-seller report accusing a quantum computing company of running a "quantum Ponzi scheme," finding the report too unreliable alone to establish loss causation.
SEC arbitration reversal could remove class actions for some issuers entirely
On September 17, 2025, the SEC reversed its longstanding position and said mandatory arbitration provisions in a company's governing documents will no longer factor into whether the agency accelerates a registration statement. Przybylowski said this could let companies adopt arbitration clauses that route investor disputes out of court entirely, a shift plaintiffs' firms have already signaled they will challenge. "That is a different order of change than anything else happening in securities litigation right now," he said.
Przybylowski said disclosure committees should review AI-washing, tariff and pump-and-dump complaints filed against comparable companies and adjust public statements accordingly, since almost any company discussing AI capabilities, tariff exposure or credit performance faces potential exposure.