The SEC’s high-profile enforcement action against Goldman Sachs and one of its investment bankers may or may not revitalize the waning subprime and credit crisis-related litigation wave, but it has at least sparked an outbreak of follow on civil litigation against Goldman Sachs.
According to their April 26, 2010 press release (here), plaintiffs’ lawyers have filed a securities class action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Goldman and certain of its directors and officers. According to the press release, the complaint (which can be found here) alleges that the defendants failed to disclose that:
(i) the Company had, in violation of applicable law, not fully disclosed the facts and circumstances concerning the formation and sale of the ABACUS 2007-AC1 deal to investors such that it had engaged in misleading conduct; (ii) the Company had, in fact, bet against its clients and constructed collateralized debt obligations that were likely, if not designed, to fail; and (ii) the Company had received a Wells Notice from the SEC about the ABACUS transaction but failed to inform shareholders of this fact.
The complaint further alleges that April 16, 2010, Goldman was sued by the SEC "for making materially misleading statements and omissions in connection" with ABACUS 2007-AC1. Following this announcement, Goldman’s stock price fell $24.05, declining from $184.27 per share on April 15, 2010 to close at $160.70 per share on April 16, 2010.
A key issue in this new lawsuit will be Goldman’s alleged failure to disclosure the existence of the Wells Notice. Which of course begs the question of whether or not Goldman had any obligation to disclosure the existence of the Wells Notice. There is no bright line rule on this issue, it is a question of materiality. But as Michelle Leder points out on the Footnoted blog (here), lost of other companies do routinely disclose Wells Notices. A post on the Westlaw Business Currents blog (here) is very much to the same effect, that is, that whether or not Wells Notice disclosure is requrired, many companies do disclose Wells Notices.
The securities class action lawsuit filing follows close on the heels of the filing late last week of two separate New York state court shareholders’ derivative lawsuits against Goldman, as nominal defendant, and certain of its directors and officers. According to April 23, 2010 press reports (refer here), the complaints allege that:
The individual defendants engaged in a systematic failure to exercise oversight of the company’s 23 Abacus transactions, which were completed over a three and half year period. As a direct and legal result of the individual defendants’ wrongful conduct, Goldman Sachs has been significantly and materially damaged, faces billions of dollars of liability, has incurred and will continue to incur millions of dollars of expense in defending claims against the SEC and investors, and has suffered serious damage to its reputation and image.
The same press reports also quote a leading plaintiffs’ securities class action attorney as saying that "I suspect every major pension fund in America" is considering suing Goldman Sachs "over the conduct that occurred."
I have added the new Goldman lawsuit to my running list of subprime and credit crisis-related securities class action lawsuits, which can be accessed here. SInce I first began compiling the list almost exactly four years ago, there have been a total of 210 subprime and credit crisis-related securities suits filed, of which eight have been filed so far this year.
A WSJ.com Law Blog post about the Goldman securities class action lawsuit can be found here. Bloomberg’s article about the lawsuit can be found here.
More About Goldman Sachs and D&O Claims: An April 26, 2010 National Underwriter article by Susanne Sclafane entitled "Long-Awaited SEC Action Emphasizes Need for More D&O Cover, Lawyer Says" (here) presents a lengthy discussion of the possible D&O claims implications from the recent SEC action against Goldman Sachs, as well as any follow on private litigation. The article also contains an extensive summary of the recent Advisen conference call regarding first quarter securities litigation trends.
As for the question of potential insurance coverage for the SEC’s claims and for other claims that filed against Goldman Sachs, an April 26, 2010 Business Insurance article by Roberto Ceniceros entitled "Goldman Legal Woes Could Hit Insurers" (here) explores the issues that could affect the availability of coverage under Goldman’s D&O insurance program. An April 24, 2010 Bloomberg article on the same topic can be found here.
The April 26, 2010 issue of Business Insurance also has an article by Zack Phillips entitled "Subprime Rulings Favor Defendants" (here), discussing recent trends in subprime and credit crisis lawsuit dismissal motion rulings.
Developments on the D&O Claims Front: In Chubb’s April 22, 2010 quarterly earnings conference call (a transcript of which can be found here), Chubb Vice-Chairman John Degnan had the following to say about D&O claims trends:
I am particularly pleased about developments in two areas I want to mention specifically, the frequency of non-credit crisis security class action claims and the recent rulings in credit crisis derivative actions.
For the second straight quarter, even as the number of new credit crisis security class actions virtually disappeared we did not see a corresponding increase in the number of non-credit crisis class actions. So for those observers who have speculated that there was a substantial number of backlog claims waiting to be filed, the evidence so far doesn’t support that. And, the two year statute of limitations is already a bar to actions in which the triggering event, typically a corrective disclosure took place in 2007 and early 2008, the years in which that presumed backlog would have been building.
In addition, we’re encouraged by the continuing relatively high dismissal rate in the first quarter of derivative actions which might otherwise trigger our side A coverages. Unlike the stock option back dating claims which were heavily weighted towards derivative actions, credit crisis claims have been predominately securities class actions. However, in connection with the credit crisis derivative claims which have been brought, we are seeing the allocation of well established legal protections governing mismanagement allocations and the defendants are having great, in some cases even unexpected success in defending those claims.
For example, in the recent decision involving AIG’s credit crisis woes, the court has made it clear that they will not engage in second guessing managements’ legitimate business decisions regardless of how badly those decisions played out. So, although some observers have asserted that credit crisis derivative claims have the potential to impact side A coverages, we are not currently seeing an increased level of exposure as a result of them.
Ordinarily I would not include on this blog anything as insurer-specific as a single company’s earnings conference call transcript, and I do not intend to comment on Chubb’s quarterly results here. I included this selection from the conference call transcript because I have a couple of thoughts about Mr. Degnan’s claims trend observations.
I should emphasize at the outset that in adding my comments that I mean no disrespect to Mr. Degnan, for whom I have nothing but the highest admiration and respect. Moreover, I fully recognize that Mr. Degnan’s comments were made in reference to his own company’s experience, rather than as a general matter. But with respect to more general trends, I do have a few observations.
There is no doubt that securities class action lawsuit filings were down during the first quarter as has been noted elsewhere. However, by my count there have been eight securities class action lawsuits filed so far in 2010 (out of about 40 lawsuit total YTD) in which the filing date was more than a year after the proposed class period cutoff. That 20% of all filings YTD were belated suggests to me that the belatedness of securities lawsuit filing, which first became pronounced in the second half of 2009, has continued into 2010. My earlier post about belated 2010 securities lawsuit filings can be found here.
I agree with Mr. Degnan that so far the credit crisis-related derivative suits have not gone particularly well for the plaintiffs. But as for the potential risks for the Side A product line in general as a result of derivative litigation activity, it is important to note that when derivative cases survive the initial pleading hurdles, they are increasingly costly to settle, and when they do settle, increasingly they are producing Side A losses.
The best illustration of this latter point is the $118 million settlement in the Broadcom options backdating derivative lawsuit, to which Excess Side A insurers contributed $40 million. Admittedly, the Broadcom settlement was not credit crisis related but it still represents a very significant development. (Perhaps Mr. Degnan can be forgiven for neglecting to mention the case, however, since his company is one of the few D&O insurers that did not participate in the Broadcom’s Side A tower.)
In any event, the most significant risk to the Side A product line is from insolvency related claims, not derivative claims. In the current economic environment, bankruptcy related claims remain a significant threat.