One of the most noteworthy recent trends in corporate and securities litigation has been the dramatic growth in the frequency of lawsuits relating to mergers and acquisitions activity. These lawsuits are not only becoming increasingly more common, but also increasingly more costly. The growth in this litigation activity has been so rapid that the significance of these trends may remain underappreciated.
In this post, I first set the stage to examine these trends by reviewing the current landscape for traditional securities class action litigation, which differs in many ways from current conventional wisdom, and which provides a context for assessing the merger-related litigation trends. I then review important recent developments in M&A related litigation activity, both in terms of increasing frequency and escalating severity. I conclude with a review of the implications of these developments.
The Current Securities Class Action Litigation Environment
Traditionally, any discussion of corporate and securities litigation focused primarily (and sometimes exclusively) on securities class action litigation. In many ways, this makes perfect sense, as these kinds of lawsuits were for many years the most frequent and the most severe type of corporate and securities lawsuit.
More recently, the relative significance of securities class action litigation as a percentage of all corporate and securities litigation risks has shifted. As the insurance information firm Advisen has well-documented (refer here), securities class action litigation activity as a percentage of all corporate and securities litigation has declined dramatically over the past several years. Whereas securities class action lawsuits once represented among the most likely sources of litigation, in 2010 securities class action lawsuits represented less than 16% of all corporate and securities lawsuit filings.
As Advisen has also documented and as is discussed below, one reason for this relative decline is the growth in M&A-related litigation filings. Moreover, as is also discussed below, securities class action litigation is not the only source of corporate and securities litigation severity exposure; M&A-related lawsuits also represent a growing severity risk.
But, to set the stage for the discussion of M&A-related litigation trends and their significance, there are some important misperceptions about traditional securities class action litigation activity that I want to address.
A frequently recurring question is whether overall securities class action litigation filings are declining. Usually this discussion focuses exclusively on the absolute number of annual new securities class action lawsuit filings. In 2010, depending on the source to which you are referring, the absolute number of new lawsuit filings either declined compared to historical averages ( e.g., refer here regarding the 2010 Cornerstone Research study) or held steady or perhaps grew (refer here regarding the 2010 NERA Economic Consulting study). The reasons these studies reach different conclusions are worthy topics for a separate blog post. But regardless of the conclusions about the absolute numbers of annual lawsuit filings, the key fact often missing from the analysis is a consideration of how the absolute number of filings relates to the changing number of public companies.
The fact is, since, 1999, the number of companies listed on U.S. exchanges has declined every year. If you refer to the annual data from the World Federation of Exchanges (here), you will see that the number of companies listed on U.S. exchanges has declined from over 8,500 in 1999 to about 5,100 in 2010 – a decline of about 40%.
When the absolute number of annual lawsuits is compared to the declining number of companies trading on U.S. exchanges, it is clear that the frequency of securities class action lawsuit filings has not declined, but arguably is increasing, and at a minimum is at least holding steady.
But while frequency has not declined, median severity has increased. In 2010, the median securities class action settlement was $11.1 million, which is well over double the 1999 median settlement of $5.0 million and triple the 1996 median settlement of $3.7 million. These figures are not adjusted to account for the effect of economic inflation, but these figures nevertheless reflect a substantial increase.
In short, even amidst the changing litigation landscape in which securities class action lawsuit filings have declined as a percentage of all corporate and securities litigation, the threat of securities class action litigation remains a very serious litigation exposure for publicly traded companies.
It is against this backdrop that the growth in M&A litigation must be considered.
The Exploding Growth in M&A-Related Litigation
Whatever else you want to say about M&A-related litigation, it is clear that there is a lot more of it now than there used to be, both in terms of absolute numbers of lawsuits filings and also relative to the number of merger transactions. Indeed, Advisen has commented that the number of M&A-related lawsuits has “skyrocketed “in recent years.
Reported data (refer for example here and here) show that as recently as ten years ago, there were only a handful of M&A related lawsuits filed each year. For example, in 2001, there were only four M&A related lawsuits filed, compared to the 341 filed in 2010 (up from “only” 191 the year prior). Just in the four- year period ending in 2010, the annual number of merger-related lawsuit filings has increased over 600%.
These numbers are even more startling when it is considered that these lawsuit filings are increasing even as the number of merger transactions is declining. The number of merger targeted companies declined in each of the three years from 2008 to 2010, yet the absolute number of merger-related lawsuits increased in each of those three years relative to the prior year. In 2010, there were 214 fewer companies targeted for mergers than there were in 2007, representing a decline of over 37%. Yet the number of merger-related lawsuits filed in 2010 was more than triple the number filed in 2007. Today, one out of every two companies announcing an acquisition is sued, and that is true whether or not the acquisition is friendly or hostile, and even whether or not the board of the target company has accepted or rejected the proposed acquisition.
There are a host of possible explanations for these filing trends. The first is that a changing case law environment has made securities class action litigation a more challenging game for plaintiffs (for example, as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s holdings in the Tellabs case and the Morrison case). In addition, the declining number of public companies over the past several years means that there are fewer prospective securities class action litigation targets. These developments may have encouraged plaintiffs’ lawyers to seek out an alternative business model.
And in the M&A related litigation, the plaintiffs’ attorneys seem to have found relatively easy money, as these cases often involve a quick resolution (due to the fact that the parties are often highly motivated to complete the underlying transaction) and the payment of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees, which average around $400,000 per case. These attributes of M&A related litigation were discussed in an August 27, 2011 Wall Street Journal article, written from the shareholders’ perspective, entitled “Why Merger Lawsuits Don’t Pay” (here) and in a July 12, 2011 Fox Business article entitled “M&A Lawsuits Skyrocket as Fee-Hungry Law Firms Smell Easy Money” (here).
The surest sign that M&A-related litigation represents an attractive proposition for the plaintiffs’ lawyers is the level of lawsuit competition that merger transactions increasingly are engendering. Increasingly, the announcement of a merger can trigger multiple separate lawsuits filed by separate plaintiffs’ firms in multiple separate jurisdictions, producing complicated procedural and jurisdictional issues (refer for example here and here) and also adding dramatically to the cost of litigation.
This latter point, about the costs involved, brings us to the heart of the matter. Not only are M&A cases increasingly more frequent, they are increasingly more costly, in a number of ways. I emphasize the costs involved because there is a perception in certain quarters that while M&A lawsuits may be numerous, they represent only a minor nuisance. To put this in insurance terms, M&A lawsuits are described as a high frequency, low severity risk. In fact, this is something I myself have said in the past. However, the truth now is, when all of the costs are considered on an all-in basis, that the cases actually are quite expensive, and increasingly are becoming more so.
Start with defense expenses. Because these cases often involve high stakes and short fuses, their defense often can trigger an explosion of legal fees. When you add in the additional expense involved when there are multiple cases in multiple jurisdictions, the expenses multiply. And when you add in the fact that these cases increasingly are continuing on even after the underlying merger transaction has closed, the defense costs can increase exponentially. Much of the time, these defense expenses are borne by the target company’s D&O insurer.
The D&O Insurers not only absorb the sometimes massive defense expenses, but they also often have to absorb the plaintiffs’ fees as well, as the payment of the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees often is a covered component of the case settlement. (Refer here for a recent discussion of the issues surrounding D&O coverage for a plaintiffs’ fee request in a derivative lawsuit settlement.)
The plaintiffs’ fees alone can sometimes be staggering. In the August 2010 Morgan Kinder lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ fee requests amounted to as much as $50 million (that is, 25% of the $200 million settlement, refer here). The plaintiffs’ fee request in the September 2011 Del Monte settlement was $22.3 million (refer here). And in the May 2010 settlement of the Atlas Energy case, the plaintiffs’ fee request was as much as $17.25 million ($25% of the $69 million settlement, refer here).
It should be emphasized that the plaintiffs’ fee request can be substantial even where there is otherwise no cash component to the settlement. For example, in the April 2010 XTO Energy settlement, in which there otherwise was no cash component, the plaintiffs’ fee request was $8.8 million (refer here) . In the September 2009 Pepsi Bottling settlement, which otherwise did not involve a cash payment the plaintiffs’ fee request was $7.7 million (refer here). Similarly in the February 2011 Atlas Energy case, the fee request was $4.0 million (refer here).
And beyond that – and the most important point here – it is increasingly common for the settlement of these cases to also involve significant cash payments. Indeed, the settlements in many of these cases suddenly are starting to resemble in order of magnitude the settlements of securities class action lawsuits. Thus, the Kinder Morgan case, as referenced above, settled in August 2010 for $200 million (refer here); the Del Monte case, as noted above, settled in September 2011 for $89 million (refer here); the May 2010 ACS settlement was $69 million (refer here); and the 2011 Intermix Media settlement was $45 million (refer here). In many instances, where these settlement amounts are not designated as an increase in the acquisition price, these settlement amounts may be insurable.
And not only have these cases become more expensive in every way, there are signs that the competition between jurisdictions could even further exacerbate this situation. At November 11, 2011 Columbia Law School conference about the Delaware Chancery Court, various observers commented on the question of whether the Delaware courts, the traditional forum for this type of litigation, were losing “market share” to other jurisdictions’ courts, possibly because plaintiffs’ lawyers believe they (and their clients too, don’t forget) think they can do better elsewhere. Francis Pileggi has a good summary of the discussion at the conference in a November 11, 2011 post on his Delaware Corporate & Commercial Litigation blog (here).
As Alison Frankel discussed in a November 14, 2011 post on her Thomson Reuters News and Insight blog, here, this debate compelled one Delaware jurist to conduct a visual demonstration to try to prove that plaintiffs’ lawyers can expect to recover substantial fees in Delaware courts. It is an obvious concern if Delaware’s judges feel obliged -- in order remain competitive in the jurisdictional competition and to try to preserve declining market share -- to prove that plaintiffs’ lawyers will be rewarded for resorting to the state’s courts.
Discussion
Contrary to popular perception, the new M&A litigation model represents both a high frequency and a high severity risk. The severity risk is particularly acute given the exacerbating effects of escalating defense expenses and rising plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees. Increasingly, M&A litigation is a recurring and very expensive feast for which D&O insurers are picking up increasingly larger tabs.
Another important point that should not be lost here is what the increasing risk of M&A related litigation means in combination with the ongoing risk of securities class action litigation. When all of the factors are considered – including the declining number of public companies and the increasing absolute number of lawsuits – it is apparent that publicly traded companies today face a significantly increased risk of serious corporate and securities litigation than they did in the recent past.
Indeed, the probability of a U.S.-exchange listed company facing a merger lawsuit or a securities class action lawsuit in 2010 was more than double what the equivalent probability was as recently as 2006, as the number of public companies has declined and the number of lawsuits has increased. To be specific, the probability in 2006 that any given public company would get hit with a merger lawsuit or securities class action lawsuit was 2.8%; the equivalent probability in 2010 was 5.7%. The probability of any given company being involved in serious corporate and securities litigation has never been greater.
All of these developments mean that publicly traded companies’ litigation risks represent an increasingly serious and expensive problem, and that M&A-related litigation is increasingly a big part of that problem – in general, of course, but also for the companies’ D&O liability insurers as well.
Now, I am not the first to make some of these points about M&A-related litigation. But I think there still is a perception that if M&A-related litigation represents a problem for the D&O insurance industry, it is principally a problem for the insurers that are active in providing primary D&O insurance (refer for example here), and that this is not a problem for the carriers that confine their public company D&O exposures to the excess layers. The point I hope the above analysis gets across is that when you take into account the defense expenses, the plaintiffs’ fees and the M&A related indemnity exposure, the M&A-related litigation increasingly represents a risk for all of the carriers in companies’ D&O insurance programs. M&A litigation increasingly involves a threat of a flame-through loss, increasingly approaching the order of magnitude of securities class action litigation.
With both increasing frequency and severity, the casual observer might well assume that pricing for D&O insurance would also be increasing. The casual observer’s assumption would, however, fail to take into account the iron laws of supply and demand. There are more D&O insurers now than there were ten years ago, representing in the aggregate much greater levels of insurance capacity, while at the same time, there are many fewer public companies. What you have are increasing numbers of D&O insurers chasing decreasing numbers of public company D&O insurance buyers. As a result, overall industry pricing has declined steadily since 2003.
It might well be asked how long this combination of circumstances in the D&O insurance marketplace can continue. Some commentators are already proclaiming that they thing they see a market turn on the horizon. I am making no predictions. I have been in this business one way or the other for nearly three decades and I think that every single day during that period someone has been predicting a hard market. We are still waiting. All I know is that if someone were looking around for reasons to explain increasing D&O insurance pricing (if it were in fact increasing), they wouldn’t have to struggle to find explanations. However, I also know that the insurance industry rarely changes as an act of will – it usually changes only as a matter of necessity. Until necessity requires, then, the D&O insurance industry likely will continue on in the same direction – even as the dashboard indicator lights flash caution.
.jpg)
The changing mix of corporate and securities litigation is a recent phenomenon on which I have frequently commented on this blog. While identifying the fact of the change is relatively straightforward, explaining it is more challenging. According to a January 11, 2012 article in The Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation entitled “Shareholder Litigation After the Fall of an Iron Curtain” (here), written by Boris Feldman of the Wilson Sonsini law firm, the changing pattern in corporate and securities litigation filings is a result of changes in the plaintiffs’ securities litigation bar – particularly, the elimination of a dominant plaintiffs’ firm. These changes, according to Feldman, have resulted in the five recent securities litigation trends he identifies in his article.
There seems to be a general consensus that the amount of M&A-related litigation is increasing. The question of how to quantify the increase has attracted quite a bit of attention lately. In a 
In several recent posts (most recently .jpg)
In a prior post (
