Cite as: 508 U. S. 286 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
rights has developed without clear indications of congressional intent," a federal court has the limited power to define "the contours of that structure." Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501 U. S. 1083, 1104 (1991). As to this proposition we were unanimous. See ibid. (Souter, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and White, O'Connor, and Scalia, JJ.); id., at 1114 (Kennedy, J., joined by Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("Where an implied cause of action is well accepted by our own cases and has become an established part of the securities laws . . . we should enforce it as a meaningful remedy unless we are to eliminate it altogether"). See also Blue Chip Stamps, supra, at 737 (recognizing the authority of federal courts to define "the contours of a private cause of action under Rule 10b-5" and "to flesh out the portions of the law with respect to which neither the congressional enactment nor the administrative regulations offer conclusive guidance").
We are not alone in recognizing a judicial authority to shape, within limits, the 10b-5 cause of action. The existence of that action, and our cumulative work in its design, have been obvious legislative considerations in the enactment of two recent federal statutes. The first is the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988, Pub. L. 100-704, 102 Stat. 4680, which added the insider trading prohibition of § 20A to the 1934 Act. See 15 U. S. C. § 78t-1. Section 20A(d) states that "[n]othing in this section shall be construed to limit or condition . . . the availability of any cause of action implied from a provision of this title." The second statute is the recent congressional enactment respecting limitations periods for 10b-5 actions. Following our resolution two Terms ago of a difficult statute of limitations issue for 10b-5 suits, see Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350 (1991), Congress intervened by limiting the retroactive effect of our decision, and the caution in its intervention is instructive. In
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