In an earlier post (here), I questioned whether the two-year lull in securities class action filings had ended. I posed the question then because of the uptick in securities class action filings between August 1, 2007 and September 30, 2007. But with continued active filing levels during October 2007, the statement no longer
Subprime Litigation Wave Hits Merrill Lynch
Investors undoubtedly were angry after Merrill Lynch announced on October 24, 2007 (here) that the company’s 3rd quarter results included “write-downs of $7.9 billion across CDOs and subprime mortgages, which are significantly greater than the incremental $4.5 billion write-down Merrill Lynch disclosed at the time of its earnings pre-release.” The $3.4 billion write-down
The List: Options Backdating Settlements, Dismissals and Denials
As various options backdating lawsuit settlements and dismissals have accumulated in recent days, I have received a variety of inquiries from readers about comparisons with prior dispositions or about the outcomes of various other specific cases. The absence of a single, all-inclusive resource to address these questions led me to put together a compiled list
More (and More) Options Backdating Dismissals
For those keeping track, the options backdating-related securities class action lawsuit filed against Hansen Natural can be added to the list of options backdating-related securities class action dismissals. (Refer here regarding prior dismissals.) Hansen announced in its 8-K dated October 23, 3007 (here) that the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the
A Securities Lawsuit Goes to Trial
According to news reports (here , here and here), a jury trial in the securities class action lawsuit filed against JDS Uniphase commenced on Monday in federal court in Oakland. As documented in an October 2007 presentation from Risk Metrics Group (here), trials in securities cases are such a rarity that
Environmental Disclosure Issues
In a recent post (here), I wrote about the September 18, 2007 petition submitted to the SEC by several environmental groups, seeking to persuade the SEC to institute rules requiring companies to assess and fully disclose their financial risks from climate change. These groups clearly want to use the SEC’s disclosure requirements to
PCAOB Reports Significant “Triennial Firm” Audit Concerns
Under Section 104(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is required to inspect audit firms that regularly provide audit reports for fewer than 100 public companies “not less frequently than once every 3 years.” On October 22, 2007, the PCAOB released a Report regarding its inspections of these so-called
Subprime Lawsuits: Complex Instruments, Complicated Claims
As the subprime mortgage mess has unfolded, one of the contributing factors blamed for the meltdown has been the complicated investment instruments into which the subprime mortgage loans were packaged and then sold into the global financial marketplace. I have previously noted (most recently here) that the subprime mortgage meltdown has led to a
More About Foreign Companies and U.S. Courts
In a prior post (here), I took a look at securities claims in U.S. courts by foreign litigants against foreign companies. An alert reader commenting on my prior post pointed out that a case currently before the Second Circuit squarely presents the fundamental jurisdictional questions involved in these cases.
The case, Morrison v.
Mortgage-Backed Asset Valuation and Mortgage Investment Risk
In a prior post (here), I noted that one of the scarier aspects of the subprime lending mess is the widespread dispersion of mortgage investment risk across the economy. While companies holding mortgage-backed assets might well want to avoid recognizing any diminution of these assets’ valuation, an audit industry group, the Center for