In the world of directors’ and officers’ liability, securities class action lawsuits dominate the dialogue. Securities lawsuits generate headlines and produce eye-popping settlements. There are even websites (refer here and here) devoted exclusively to providing the latest information about securities lawsuits. The same cannot be said for derivative lawsuits, but it has not always

In recent days, there has been extensive media attention (here and here) focused on the fact that plaintiffs’ lawyers seeking to exploit the options backdating scandal are filing shareholders’ derivative suits in preference to securities fraud class action lawsuits. Indeed, The D & O Diary’s running tally of options backdating lawsuits (here

On May 12, 2006, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York preliminarily approved the settlement of the consolidated derivative litigation filed on behalf of AOL Time Warner against 25 of the company’s present and former directors and officers as well as other third party defendants. The various derivative lawsuits alledged