Cite as: 511 U. S. 164 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
507 F. 2d 374 (CA2 1974); cf. Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501 U. S. 1083 (1991) (§ 14); Schreiber v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 472 U. S. 1 (1985) (same).
The latter issue, determining the elements of the 10b-5 private liability scheme, has posed difficulty because Congress did not create a private § 10(b) cause of action and had no occasion to provide guidance about the elements of a private liability scheme. We thus have had "to infer how the 1934 Congress would have addressed the issue[s] had the 10b-5 action been included as an express provision in the 1934 Act." Musick, Peeler, supra, at 294.
With respect, however, to the first issue, the scope of conduct prohibited by § 10(b), the text of the statute controls our decision. In § 10(b), Congress prohibited manipulative or deceptive acts in connection with the purchase or sale of securities. It envisioned that the SEC would enforce the statutory prohibition through administrative and injunctive actions. Of course, a private plaintiff now may bring suit against violators of § 10(b). But the private plaintiff may not bring a 10b-5 suit against a defendant for acts not prohibited by the text of § 10(b). To the contrary, our cases considering the scope of conduct prohibited by § 10(b) in private suits have emphasized adherence to the statutory language, " '[t]he starting point in every case involving construction of a statute.' " Ernst & Ernst, supra, at 197 (quoting Blue Chip Stamps, 421 U. S., at 756 (Powell, J., concurring)); see Chiarella, supra, at 226; Santa Fe Industries, supra, at 472. We have refused to allow 10b-5 challenges to conduct not prohibited by the text of the statute.
In Ernst & Ernst, we considered whether negligent acts could violate § 10(b). We first noted that "[t]he words 'manipulative or deceptive' used in conjunction with 'device or contrivance' strongly suggest that § 10(b) was intended to proscribe knowing or intentional misconduct." 425 U. S., at 197. The SEC argued that the broad congressional purposes behind the Act—to protect investors from false and
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