Matt Bleich represents clients in commercial and appellate litigation. His trial practice focuses on business disputes and shareholder actions. His appellate practice has involved such diverse subjects as employee disputes, contract disputes, product liability law, and water rights.
Matt received a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He received a B.A. cum laude from Columbia University and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Publications
April 23, 2014
When is it reasonable to rely on a fraudulent statement? Courts applying Pennsylvania law have answered this question in different and conflicting ways, as two recent decisions from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania illustrate. According to the court in Zenith Insurance v. Wells Fargo Insurance Services (E.D. Pa., Jan. 7, 2014), you are entitled to rely on a fraudulent statement no matter what, unless the statement's falsity is obvious on its face or you have actual knowledge of its falsity. Just a few months before, however, a different judge of the same court had expressed the opposite view in Fulton Financial Advisors v. NatCity Investments (E.D. Pa., Oct. 15, 2013): A victim of fraud cannot accept a fraudster at his or her word, but must exercise some degree of diligence in attempting to verify the statement.
May 09, 2011
How secret is the settlement that you obtained with help from the court? Over the years, the answer in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been "not so secret" — even when you expressly provided for it to be secret. Because of the 3rd Circuit's recent decision in LEAP Systems Inc. v. MoneyTrax , settling parties with secrecy concerns now have a little more comfort.
April 06, 2011
In Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, a unanimous Supreme Court declined to adopt a bright-line rule that would have made a drug company’s failure to disclose adverse event reports material only if the reports were statistically significant. Instead, the Court reaffirmed the fact sensitive standard it adopted more than two decades ago: an omission is material under the securities laws only if there is a ''substantial likelihood that the disclosure of the omitted fact would have been viewed by the reasonable investor as having significantly altered the ‘total mix’ of information made available.''
February 09, 2011
Almost a year ago, the Delaware Court of Chancery opined in dictum that if a company’s board and shareholders thought derivative actions would best be litigated in a particular forum, the company would be ''free'' to adopt an appropriate venue provision in its charter. See In re Revlon Inc. Shareholders Litig., 990 A.2d 940, 960 & n.8 (Del. Ch. 2010).
May 04, 2010
The UK Bribery Act, which became law on April 8, 2010 and which will come into force later this year, has important implications for U.S. companies that carry on business, however modest, in the UK. In particular, the Act’s expansive jurisdiction over non-UK companies in matters of private commercial bribery, and the lack of an exception for ''facilitating payments,'' may require U.S. companies to review and modify their anti-corruption compliance programs to conform to the new law.