At a hearing yesterday, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals appeared unlikely to grant Wal-Mart's request to dismisstheclass action.
This is a little naive given that the modern securities class action is mainly an exercise in getting a case past the motion to dismiss and only a handful of cases have every gone before a jury.
Since virtually every securities class action settles after surviving a motion to dismiss, the risk of non-payment is presumably much lower for plaintiff attorneys and courts might consider lowering or eliminating the multiplier on billable hours the firms rack up after that.
Mr Obama won the presidency while campaigning on a similar proposal, but did not get it enacted when Congress was under Democratic control, and now faces implacable opposition to the idea from Republicans, who dismiss it, as usual, as class warfare.