As noted in a post yesterday, last Friday a federal jury held Derek Palaschuk, the former CFO of Longtop Financial, liable for the company’s financial misrepresentations. On Monday, the jury deliberated further on the percentage of investors’ damages for which Palaschuk is responsible. According to Nate Raymond’s Nov ember 24, 2014 Reuters article (here) the jury held the CFO responsible for only one percent of the investors’ damages. The jury assigned 49 percent of the responsibility to Longtop itself and 50 percent to the company’s former CEO, Wai Chau Lin. Max Stendahl’s November 24, 2014 Law 360 article about the jury’s division of responsibility for investors’ damages can be found here.

 

The jury did not determine the dollar value of Palaschuk’s one percent responsibility. The plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case is quoted in the press coverage as saying that the value of the jury’s 1% responsibility finding against Palaschuk has a value of somewhere between $5 million and $8.82, although the way the plaintiffs’ lawyers came up with this figure is by applying the percentage against the amount of the default judgment that Southern District of New York Judge Shira Scheindlin previously entered against the company and the CEO (as discussed here).

 

It should be noted that the damages amount in the default judgment was based solely on an uncontested proffer by plaintiffs’ counsel in connection with the plaintiffs’ motion for default judgment against defendants that failed to appear and defend. The Reuters article quotes Palaschuk’s counsel as saying that the plaintiffs’ counsel’s estimate of the dollar figure that the one percent responsibility allocation represents as “pie-in-the-sky.” The exact dollar value of one percent damages calculation is subject to further proceedings.

 

However, the Reuters article does also note that on Monday the jury did find that Longtop’s american depositary shares were inflated due to the securities law violations from Feb. 10, 2010 to May 17, 2011, by $11.89 to $19.51 per share. The Reuters article also reports that Palaschuk’s lawyers plan to ask a judge to set the verdict aside.

 

D&O Diary Named to American Bar Association Journal’s List of Top 100 Law Blogs: I am pleased to report that once again The D&O Diary has been voted onto the American Bar Association Journal’s list of the top 100 law blogs, as detailed here. I am very honored to be included on this list once again as the list includes many of the blogs that I regularly  follow. It is quite privilege to be included in the same list as all of the other fine blogs.

 

Now that the 2014 top law blawg list has been decided, what comes next is the voting for the best in category. The D&O Diary is contending for the title of best in the Niche blog category (for some reason the ABA Journal’s editors seem to think that D&O liability and insurance is niche topic). I would be grateful for any readers who would be willing to take the time to vote for my blog as the best of the Niche category. Thanks to everyone who already voted for my blog to be included in the ABA Top 100 Blawg list for 2014. Congrats to all of the 2014 nominees.