Merck Investors’ State Law Fraud Claims Revived by 3d Cir. (2)

Merck & Co. Inc. investors who opted out of class suits against the firm over a pair of cholesterol drugs got Third Circuit permission to pursue their state law fraud claims individually Sept. 12.

The pharmaceutical firm can’t use a federal law guiding securities class actions to block the state fraud claims because these investors opted out of those suits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said. It reversed the suits’ dismissal.

Merck and Schering-Plough Corp., which it merged with in 2009, allegedly spent years stalling the release of poor clinical trial results for cholesterol drugs Vytorin ...