294
Opinion of the Court
an approach parallel to the one it adopted for the insider trading statute, Congress did no more than direct the applicable "limitation period for any private civil action implied under section 78j(b) of this title [§ 10(b) of the 1934 Act] that was commenced on or before June 19, 1991 [the day prior to issuance of Lampf, Pleva]." 15 U. S. C. § 78aa-1 (1988 ed., Supp. III).
We infer from these references an acknowledgment of the 10b-5 action without any further expression of legislative intent to define it. See Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S. 375, 384-386 (1983); Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U. S. 353, 378-382 (1982). Indeed, the latter statute, § 78aa-1, not only treats the 10b-5 action as an accepted feature of our securities laws, but avoids entangling Congress in its formulation. That task, it would appear, Congress has left to us.
III
We now turn to the question whether a right to contribution is within the contours of the 10b-5 action. The parties have devoted considerable portions of their briefs to debating whether a rule of contribution or of no contribution is more efficient or more equitable. Just as we declined to rule on these matters in Texas Industries and Northwest Airlines, we decline to do so here. Our task is not to assess the relative merits of the competing rules, but rather to attempt to infer how the 1934 Congress would have addressed the issue had the 10b-5 action been included as an express provision in the 1934 Act. See Lampf, Pleva, supra, at 359; Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 200-201 (1976). We do this not as an exercise in historical reconstruction for its own sake, but to ensure that the rules established to govern the 10b-5 action are symmetrical and consistent with the overall structure of the 1934 Act and, in particular, with those portions of the 1934 Act most analogous to the private 10b-5 right of action that is of judicial creation. Although
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