The Matrixx of Materiality and Statistical Significance in Securities Fraud Cases
20 December 2010
By Dr. David Tabak with Boies, Schiller & Flexner Attorney Frederick Lee
The US Supreme Court will soon consider whether information needs to be statistically significant for it to be deemed material and required to be disclosed by a company. To understand this issue, one must understand both statistical significance and materiality. In this paper, NERA Senior Vice President Dr. David Tabak and Boies, Schiller & Flexner attorney Frederick Lee discuss the concepts of statistical significance and materiality, showing the potential overlap between the two concepts under different definitions of materiality. They discuss how statistical significance can be a useful tool to help litigators and courts examine materiality and show how, depending on the type of data being examined, statistical significance has different implications for whether information would be material for investors.
