Supreme Amnesia: The Shifting Standards for Fraud-on-the-Market Class Certification

In a series of cases, beginning with Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U.S. 804 (2011), and concluding with Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. v. Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, 594 U.S. 113 (2021), the U.S. Supreme Court has offered shifting and conflicting understandings of the fraud-on-the-market presumption and its role in class certification. The confusion has filtered down to the lower courts, where class certification determinations have become wide-ranging inquiries into the merits, untethered from the fundamental question whether class treatment is appropriate. This Essay, written for the ILEP 30 th Anniversary of the PSLRA Symposium, explores how the Supreme Court has created an impossible class certification maze for parties to navigate, and recommends that courts no longer adjudicate fraud-on-the-market at class certification.