In its December 3, 2009 filing on Form-10-Q (here), Dell disclosed that on November 20, 2009, it had entered a written agreement to pay $40 million to settle the consolidated securities class action lawsuit pending against the company and certain of its directors and officers.
What makes the $40 million Dell settlement noteworthy is not its amount but its timing – the settlement comes not only after the securities lawsuit had been dismissed with prejudice at the district court level, but following oral argument on the plaintiffs’ subsequent appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
On September 13, 2006, the first of four securities class action lawsuits were filed in the Western District of Texas against Dell and four individual defendants, as well as against the company’s outside auditor. The plaintiffs’ 340-page Consolidated Amended Complaint (here) alleges that the company had a "culture of deception" and that it had used "fraudulent accounting" to inflate its revenues by $463 million for fiscal years 2003 through the 2006.
The plaintiffs further alleges that the individual defendants took advantage of the company’s inflated share price to unload millions of dollars of their personal holdings in the company stock – indeed, in the case of company founder, Michael Dell, the plaintiffs alleged that he had sold billions of dollars of company stock.
In an opinion dated October 6, 2008, Judge Sam Sparks granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, with prejudice. The plaintiffs appealed to the Fifth Circuit. According to Dell’s most recent 10-Q, oral argument on the appeal took place before the Fifth Circuit on September 1, 2009. Thereafter, and while the appeal was still pending, the parties reached the settlement agreement described above. The parties jointly request that the Fifth Circuit remand the case so that the district court could consider the proposed class settlement.
As surprising as it is for a case to have settled following dismissal and while appeal was pending, this peculiar settlement timing is not entirely unprecedented. Most notably, the parties to the Bristol- Myers Squibb securities class action lawsuit agreed to settle that case for $300 million while the case was on appeal to the Third Circuit following the district court’s dismissal.
But even though it may have happened before for a securities case to be settled while on appeal following dismissal, the timing of the $40 million Dell settlement – coming as it did shortly after oral argument – does leave you wondering why the case settled when it did.
In her blog Footnoted (here), Michelle Leder, who was the first to note and report on the Dell settlement disclosure, speculates that the appeal "had to have gone really poorly" for the company to settle after securing dismissal in the court below. To a certain extent, Leder’s speculation seems plausible. Why else would the company agree to pay $40 million to settle a case that it had already managed to get dismissed?
There are some other possibilities. The first is that the company just wanted the case gone. Old cases, even those that are going reasonably well, don’t get better with age. More that one litigant has thrown money at a case just to get rid of it, and for a company with annual revenues of $12.9 billion and third quarter earnings of $337 million, the $40 million settlement (to the extent not funded by insurance) could represent a regrettable but relatively small cost of doing business.
Another possibility is that the plaintiffs are the ones for whom oral argument had gone poorly, and that thereafter for the first time they were willing to negotiate in a range that Dell was willing to consider.
Whatever the reason for the odd settlement timing, the fact that the parties were able to settle a case while on appeal and after oral argument shows that in a securities lawsuit, the possibility for a deal is always somewhere on the table.
Very few securities suits go to trial – in general, the cases either are dismissed or they settle. And, as the Dell case shows, sometimes a case can be both dismissed and settled.
Readers who have insight they can share about why the Dell case settled when it did are cordially invited to pass that information along. If I learn anything interesting from readers, I will add it to this post. Anonymity for those who need it will be scrupulously protected.
UPDATE: Alison Frankel has a very interesting December 7, 2009 post on the Am Law Litigation Daily (here) about the Dell settlement, including additional procedural history and statements from the plaintiffs’ counsel about the settlement.
In closing, I should add a note of appreciation for the Footnoted blog. Michelle Leder consistently reports nuggets she has unearthed by digging through companies’ SEC filings. As a result of her diligence, she regularly reports perceptive and interesting things that no one else has noticed. Her site demonstrates the incredible value and power of a really good blog. Footnoted, everyone here at The D&O Diary salutes you.