Justices Surprise Lawyers With Tack on Slack Direct Listing (1)

Securities practitioners expressed surprise at some key US Supreme Court justices’ hard look at the implications of a recent New York Stock Exchange rule allowing a new form of public trading of stock, the so-called direct listing method, at oral argument Monday.

The ruling “is going to be more complicated” than most securities lawyers anticipated, said Michael Fay of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in New York.

The case heard by the high court focuses on a 2018 NYSE direct listing rule allowing the public trading of shares without an initial public offering. Under that rule, both registered and unregistered shares ...