Both of the problems in this thread have been for a class called Regulatory State, which has a lot to do with securities regulations because it's the prof's hobby horse, but it's supposed to be about the legislature's interaction with the courts. So we focus a lot on statutory interpretation. Thus this...
I'm not even sure the end of the fact pattern implies a required position for or against the Beef concern in question... only an investigation into the "merits" of the case. There are no precedent cases on secondary market disclosure under these two sections. There was however a recent supreme court case on primary market disclosure which held that because falling prices as a result of external influences could not constitute a "material change" within the meaning of the statute, the corporation and its officers were not liable for failing to disclose that information after their prospectus was issued (the prospectus in that case became misleading later because of external factors negatively affecting sales). Duties for primary market disclosure are in s.56(1) and 57(1) and the remedy is in 130(1) of the O.S.A. I linked. I'm trying to figure out how they're transposable to secondary market obligations as in this case. It seems to me that the acquisition of the fox farm was a material change in the business because the company gained a totally new source of revenue. But aside from that I don't see any material change as a result of the bovine flu stuff. Plus, the court has held that the fact that a challenged statement future oriented financial information was substantially achieved in the end, even though it was ostensibly unreasonable at some point, is evidence that it really WAS reasonable... I mean, how unreasonable could it have been if they ended up achieving it? I don't really agree with the last argument, but it's in the common law.