180
Opinion of the Court
Musick, Peeler, supra, at 297 ("[C]onsistency requires us to adopt a like contribution rule for the right of action existing under Rule 10b-5"). There is no reason to think that Congress would have attached aiding and abetting liability only to § 10(b) and not to any of the express private rights of action in the Act. In Blue Chip Stamps, we noted that it would be "anomalous to impute to Congress an intention to expand the plaintiff class for a judicially implied cause of action beyond the bounds it delineated for comparable express causes of action." 421 U. S., at 736. Here, it would be just as anomalous to impute to Congress an intention in effect to expand the defendant class for 10b-5 actions beyond the bounds delineated for comparable express causes of action.
Our reasoning is confirmed by the fact that respondents' argument would impose 10b-5 aiding and abetting liability when at least one element critical for recovery under 10b-5 is absent: reliance. A plaintiff must show reliance on the defendant's misstatement or omission to recover under 10b-5. Basic Inc. v. Levinson, supra, at 243. Were we to allow the aiding and abetting action proposed in this case, the defendant could be liable without any showing that the plaintiff relied upon the aider and abettor's statements or actions. See also Chiarella, 445 U. S., at 228 (omission actionable only where duty to disclose arises from specific relationship between two parties). Allowing plaintiffs to circumvent the reliance requirement would disregard the careful limits on 10b-5 recovery mandated by our earlier cases.
IV
Respondents make further arguments for imposition of § 10(b) aiding and abetting liability, none of which leads us to a different answer.
A
The text does not support their point, but respondents and some amici invoke a broad-based notion of congressional
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