Overall levels of corporate and securities litigation increased during the second quarter of 2010, according to a new study released on July 15, 2010 by the insurance information firm Advisen. A copy of the report can be found here.

 

Preliminary Notes

The litigation analyzed in the Advisen report includes not only securities class action litigation, but a broad collection of other types of suits as well, including regulatory and enforcement actions, individual actions, derivative actions, collective actions filed outside the U.S. and allegations of breach of fiduciary duty.

 

In considering the Advisen report, it is critically important to recognize that the report uses its own unique vocabulary to describe certain of the litigation categories.

 

For example, the report uses the phrase "securities fraud" lawsuits to describe a combination of both regulatory and enforcement actions, on the one hand, and private securities lawsuits brought as individual actions, on the other hand; however, the category of "securities fraud" lawsuits does NOT include private securities class action lawsuits, which is its own separate category (SCAS").

 

In addition, both "securities fraud" lawsuits and securities class action lawsuits, as well as all of the other categories of lawsuits described in the report, are subparts of the aggregate group of corporate and securities litigation the report refers to as "securities suits."

 

Due to these unfamiliar usages and the similarity of category names, considerable care is required in reading the report.

 

The Report’s Analysis

Even though subprime and credit crisis case filings during the second quarter were well below 2009 levels, overall corporate and securities litigation activity was up in the quarter – "nearly 30 percent higher than the first quarter and about 19 percent above the very active second quarter."

 

The report also notes that securities class action litigation activity was up in the quarter as well, largely as a result of litigation relating to the government investigation of Goldman Sachs and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

 

However, in what may be the report’s most significant observation, securities class action litigation is becoming an increasingly smaller percentage of all corporate and securities litigation. The report notes that this percentage has been trending downward for several years; securities class action lawsuits, which represented more than half of all corporate and securities lawsuits before 2006, represented only 23 percent of these suits in 2009 and only 19 percent in the first half of 2010.

 

In addition to the relative number of securities class action lawsuits, the absolute number of securities class action suits also declined in the first half of the year. According to the Advisen report, there were 85 securities class action lawsuits in the first half of 2010, which annualizes to 170 cases. The average annual number of securities class action filings during the period 2005-2009, according to the report, is 213. The 2010 decline "is due substantially to a sharp drop in subprime/credit crisis cases."

 

The report also notes that the average time between the end of the class period and the date the lawsuit was filed is lengthening, from 126 days in 2008 to 228 days in the first half of 2010.

 

Though new subprime and credit crisis cases continue to decline, companies in the financial sector remain the most frequent corporate and securities litigation target. According to the report, financial firms were named in about 34 percent of all corporate and securities lawsuits in the second quarter.

 

Though securities class action lawsuit filings as a percentage of all corporate and securities lawsuits have declined, lawsuits alleging breach of fiduciary duty are becoming an increasingly larger percentage of all corporate and securities lawsuits, primarily in connection with merger and acquisition activity. Breach of fiduciary duty cases represented only eight percent of all corporate and securities lawsuits in 2004, but 32 percent of all such litigation in 2009.

 

Discussion

The public dialog about securities litigation tends to concentrate on securities class action lawsuit filings. Though securities class action litigation remains the most costly type of corporate and securities litigation, from a frequency standpoint, securities class action litigation is becoming increasingly less important. According to the Advisen report, more than 80 percent of all corporate and securities litigation in the first half of 2010 involved types of litigation other than class action securities litigation.

 

Moreover this movement of litigation activity away from securities class action litigation is now well-established, having persisted (and indeed accelerated) for well over five years now.

 

The fact is that companies and their senior managers face an increasingly diverse range of potential litigation exposures. The changing landscape of corporate and securities litigation may have important implications for companies’ management liability insurance decisions. At a minimum, the changing mix of litigation suggests that companies should carefully consider potential liability exposures beyond just those involved with possible securities class action litigation.

 

The changing mix of litigation also provides an important context within which to interpret apparent declines in securities class action litigation activity. Even if fewer class action lawsuits are being filed (at least lately, anyway), that does not mean the overall threat of litigation has declined. To the contrary, the Advisen report shows that the threat of corporate and securities litigation generally continues to increase. The litigation threat is not declining, it is simply changing.

 

The more interesting question is what the future may hold for securities class action litigation. In all likelihood the apparent recent decline in new securities class action lawsuits is merely cyclical – there have certainly been prior periods where new securities class action lawsuits fell below historical levels (for example, during the period from mid-2005 to mid-2007). On the other hand, some recent activity – for example, the increase in the number of belated lawsuit filings – suggests that a variety of forces and factors are at work.

 

My own view is that, as has always been the case in the past, the litigation cycle will eventually turn and filing activity levels will revert to the mean. There is an entrenched industry of highly entrepreneurial plaintiffs’ securities class action lawyers who have every incentive to continue to file lawsuits. I suspect strongly that one factor in the current relative downturn in new securities class action filings is that the plaintiffs’ lawyers are simply swamped trying to keep up with the massive wave of complex lawsuits they filed in the wake of the subprime meltdown and the credit crisis. Eventually the decks will clear and they will resume their normal activities, particularly if there are headline-grabbing events that provide litigation fodder.

 

My own prior analysis of first half 2010 securities class action litigation filing activity can be found here. The Advisen report’s analysis of securities class action lawsuit filings in the year’s first half is directionally consistent with my own observations.

 

Advisen Securities Litigation Webinar: At 11:00 am EDT on Friday July 16, 2010, I will be participating in a free, one-hour Advisen webinar to discuss the firm’s Second Quarter Securities Litigation Report. Joining me for the webinar panel discussion will be Carl Metzger from the Goodwin Proctor firm; Carol Zacharias from ACE, and Louise Pennington of Integro. Information about and registration instructions for the webinar can be found here.