According to a December 29, 2006 Bloomberg.com article entitled “Stock Fraud Suits at 10-Year Low” (here), the 120 companies sued in securities fraud lawsuits in 2006 represented the lowest annual total since 1996. The article cites data from the Stanford Law School Class Action Clearinghouse. The total of 120 companies sued represents
Securities Litigation
A “Modest Proposal” for Securities Litigation Reform
By Kevin LaCroix on
As The D & O Diary has previously noted (most recently here), the attempts by the Paulson Committee to propose ways to improve the competitiveness of the U. S. securities exchanges in the global marketplace may include securities litigation reform. Interest in the Committee’s reform efforts increased substantially as a result of media reports…
Individuals’ Contributions to Securities Lawsuit Settlements
By Kevin LaCroix on
Posted in Securities Litigation
As The D & O Diary has previously noted (here), one of the questions following the Enron and WorldCom civil class actions settlements was whether those settlements’ requirement of individual defendants’ contribution to settlement without recourse to insurance or indemnity represented a trend or an aberration. Several recent high-profile securities lawsuit settlements involving…
The Paulson Committee and Securities Regulation Reform
By Kevin LaCroix on
In an earlier post (here), I commented on the initative of the so-called Committee on Capital Markets Regulation to take a look at the impact of regulation on the competitiveness of the U.S. securities markets in the global marketplace. (The Committee has become known as the Paulson Committee because of the public support…
Institutional Plaintiffs’ Impact on Securities Litigation
By Kevin LaCroix on
Posted in Securities Litigation
For those of us who must try to understand securities litigation trends, one of the developments worth watching closely has been the impact of institutional plaintiffs (mostly public pension funds) on securities litigation. It has been apparent for some time that cases with institutional lead plaintiffs usually resulted in larger settlements, but the question remained…
Securities Litigation Reform Redux?
By Kevin LaCroix on
When the soi-disant "Committee on Capital Markets" announced (here) on September 12, 2006 that it was forming an independent group of business and academic leaders to study how to improve the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets, the press coverage (here) generally presumed that the group would be focused on reforming the…
Criminal Sentencing Perspective on Plaintiffs’-Style Damages Calculations
By Kevin LaCroix on
Posted in Securities Litigation
On September 22, 2006, Judge Sim Lake of the United States District Court in Houston re-sentenced former Dynegy tax executive and lawyer Jamie Olis to six years in prison for securities fraud, upon reconsideration after Olis’s initial sentence of 24 years that had been reversed on appeal. (Press reports of the resentencing may be found…
More Notes About the Milberg Weiss Indictment and the Declining Number of Securities Lawsuits
By Kevin LaCroix on
Posted in Plaintiffs' Bar, Securities Litigation
An August 4, 2006 Reuters article provides numeric support for the proposition, advanced in this prior D & O Diary post, that the declining number of securities fraud lawsuits is a consequence of the Milberg Weiss indictment. The article states that the indictment is "having a big impact on [the firm’s] ability to bring…
Declining Securities Lawsuit Frequency: A Cynical Explanation?
By Kevin LaCroix on
Posted in Plaintiffs' Bar, Securities Litigation
When the Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse released their "2006 Mid-Year Assessment" earlier this week, the Report showed a 45% decline in the number of securities lawsuits filed in the first half of 2006 compared to the prior year period. According to the Report, the 61 securities class action…
Reports About Earnings Guidance, Securities Litigation Frequency, and The D & O Insurance Marketplace
By Kevin LaCroix on
Eliminate Quarterly Guidance? On July 24, 2006, the CFA Centre for Financial Market Integrity and the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics issued a Report entitled "Breaking the Short-Term Cycle: Discussion and Recommendations on How Corporate Leaders, Asset Managers, Investers and Analysts Can Refocus on Long-Term Value," calling on corporate leaders, asset managers and others…