On November 11, 2008, Citigroup (here) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (here) announced plans to modify existing home loans in an attempt to help borrowers avoid further foreclosures.
These mortgage relief efforts unquestionably are constructive, even praiseworthy. But as noted on the Real Time Economics blog (here)
On November 10, 2008, NERA Economic Consulting released a report entitled "SEC Settlements: A New Era Post-Sox" (here) that details trends in the number of SEC settlements and of SEC settlement values in the six years since the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The Report has a number of interesting findings, including
This past week, in conjunction with the PLUS International Conference in San Francisco, the insurance information firm Advisen issued an updated forecast of insurance losses likely to arise from the credit crisis. As reflected in its November 5, 2008 press release (here), Advisen is now estimating aggregate D&O and E&O losses of $9.6
One of the more distressing side effects of the recent dramatic events in the global financial markets has been the sudden and unexpected reversal of fortune on any number of financial transactions and positions, particularly with respect to commodities and currencies. These developments have proven to be particularly troublesome for market participants that sought to
With the sentencing of the last two defendants in the criminal investigation of the Milberg law firm and several of its former partners, it may be time to ask what the impact has been on the plaintiffs’ securities bar and what the future may be for securities litigation. There are also interesting questions about what
At first glance, poultry producer and processor Pilgrim’s Pride and shopping center REIT General Growth Properties would seem to have little in common. But while they may be in different business sectors they share a remarkable number of common woes.
Both are laboring under crushing debt obligations associated with recent acquisitions, and both face
At what point can we declare that the subprime securities lawsuits are not doing particularly well in the courts? It may not yet be time, but there unquestionably are growing numbers of subprime lawsuits that have failed to survive motions to dismiss, at least as a preliminary matter.
The latest evidence of this phenomenon
The credit crisis recently entered a dark new phase, and this new darker phase has also already produced its own distinctive round of lawsuits. Like the ominous economic circumstances, the new litigation phase also seems darker and more threatening.
In the latest issue of InSights (here) — entitled "Has the Credit Crisis
Do private securities lawsuits play an important role in deterring fraud and compensating defrauded investors, or are they simply wasteful and ineffective? These were the questions that on October 23, 2008 Stanford Law School Professor Joseph Grundfest and Duke Law School Professor James Cox debated in New York at the Forum for Institutional Investors sponsored
On October 23, 2008, in a much-anticipated decision addressing what it called "the vexing question of the extraterritorial application of the securities laws," the Second Circuit in the National Australia Bank (NAB) case ruled (here) that U.S. courts lack subject matter jurisdiction over the claims of foreign claimants in that case who bought