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Kevin LaCroix

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Kevin M. LaCroix is an attorney and Executive Vice President, RT ProExec, a division of RT Specialty. RT ProExec is an insurance intermediary focused exclusively on management liability issues.

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Over the last several months, the boards of a number of tech companies have been hit with “follow on” shareholder derivative lawsuits, after the companies were first sued in underlying intellectual property suits. The derivative lawsuits allege that the companies’ boards knowingly allowed their companies to use copyrighted materials to train their AI models, resulting in the underlying IP liability litigation, as well as potential IP-related liability. In the following guest post, Nathaniel French and Mason Dressler take a detailed look at the latest of these lawsuits, filed against Apple’s board. Nate is a partner and Mason is an associate at the Kennedys law firm. Our thanks to Nate and Mason for allowing us to publish their article on this site.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Apple Intelligence: Ongoing Risks Associated with AI Development

On August 21, 2026, when the Tioga-Franklin Saving Bank of Philadelphia was closed by banking regulators, it became the fifth U.S. bank to fail this year. The five failures so far in 2026 comes after only two banks closed in 2024 and in 2025, respectively. News of the most recent closure left me wondering if perhaps there was something to worry about with the recent apparent uptick in bank failures. Turns out, I am not the only one wondering about this. On August 26, 2026, Law.com ran an article considering what might be causing the recent increase in the number of bank failures. While the Law.com article concludes that the banks closed this year mostly failed due to operating problems specific to the failed institutions involved, there is still enough there to take a closer look at what is going on.

Continue Reading Should We Worry About the Uptick in Bank Failures?

Every year after Labor Day, The D&O Diary takes a step back to survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly interesting time in the world of D&O.

Continue Reading What to Watch in the World of D&O
Stephen Hourigan

In the following guest post, Stephen Hourigan argues that a key driver of D&O claim severity is not necessarily board ignorance or misconduct, but the delay between when warning signs are known somewhere within the organization and when they are effectively communicated to the board. Steve suggests that there are questions underwriters can ask to determine the effectiveness of information communication to corporate boards. Steve is the Founder and CEO of Heardsafe, LLC. Our thanks to Steve for allowing us to publish his article as a guest post on our site.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Governance Signal Decay as a D&O Severity Problem

 

As we have noted on this site, the increasing number of AI-related corporate and securities lawsuit filings is one of the most important recent developments in the world of D&O liability and insurance. Among the AI lawsuits is a particular category of claims involving allegations against AI infrastructure companies. By way of example, last week, two AI infrastructure companies were hit with securities suits alleging that the companies overstated their business opportunities  arising from providing infrastructure to support the burgeoning AI  build-out. As discussed further below, these AI infrastructure lawsuits represent their own category of AI-related suit filings.

Continue Reading AI Infrastructure Companies Hit with Securities Suits     
Nessim Mezrahi
Stephen Sigrist

In the following guest post, Nessim Mezrahi and Stephen Sigrist present their view that U.S. securities litigation risk is increasing significantly, driven by geopolitical instability and weakening investor confidence in the AI investment proposition, and that growing market capitalization losses, increased shareholder scrutiny, and the potential for an AI-related market correction are creating heightened securities litigation exposure. Nessim Mezrahi is co-founder and CEO, and Stephen Sigrist is a senior vice president, at SAR LLC. Our thanks to Nessim and Stephen for allowing us to publish their article on our site.

Continue Reading Guest Post:  Increasing Deterioration in U.S. Securities Litigation Risk

In the latest settlement in connection with the current Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts, the audit and consulting firm Deloitte has agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle Department of Justice allegations that the firm violated the False Claims Act by allegedly continuing to consider diversity in hiring, promotion, and training decisions. This latest settlement has several interesting features and raises interesting questions, as discussed below.

Continue Reading Deloitte to Pay $21.5 Million to Settle DOJ Anti-DEI False Claims Act Allegations
Glenn Oborne

In the following guest post, Glenn Oborne, Director at Ingen Partners, a specialist governance recruitment and consultancy firm, argues that the greatest risk of a prolonged governance vacancy is not disruption of board administration, but the loss of continuity, oversight, and accountability that connects director questions, management commitments, and emerging warning signs across time. Even when meetings, reports, and compliance processes continue smoothly, fragmented responsibility can make it harder for boards to identify developing issues, demonstrate effective oversight, and defend their decision-making if later scrutinized by regulators or shareholders. Our thanks to Glenn for allowing us to publish his article on our site. Here is Glenn’s article.

Continue Reading Guest Post: The Oversight Risk in Governance Vacancies

In the following guest post, Ed Whitworth, the Head of Financial Lines at Inigo, Millie Refalo, Senior Underwriter at Inigo, and Yera Patel, Head of Casualty & Financial Lines Claims and Analytics at Inigo, summarize the results of a recent survey Inigo conducted of U.S. securities litigation defense counsel. The original of the survey summary previously was published on Inigo’s blog, here. We would like to thank Ed, Millie, Yera, and Inigo for allowing us to publish the report summary on this site.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Inigo’s 2026 Defense Counsel Survey

For many years, cybersecurity-related issues have been recognized as a potential source of D&O claims and liability. More recently, other D&O claims concerns, including artificial intelligence (AI), geopolitical issues, and even market manipulation allegations, have become more conspicuous, and cybersecurity-related issues have been less prominent. However, a securities suit filed earlier this month against Israeli-based web data collection company Alarum Technologies highlights that cybersecurity-related issues remain an important potential source of D&O claims and also shows how cybersecurity-related concerns continue to evolve. A copy of the August 5, 2026, complaint against Alarum can be found here.

Continue Reading Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities Lead to Securities Suit Against Israeli Company