Chinese Checkered: In an earlier post (here), I reviewed the recent checkered track record of Chinese companies listed on the U.S. securities exchanges, including in particular Chinese IPOs. A December 2007 Dewey & LeBoeuf article entitled “China’s Top Ten at the Corporate Governance Bottom” (here) sounds many of the same themes
Cornerstone Releases Year-End 2007 Securities Litigation Report
As the latest of the year-end 2007 securities lawsuit reports (including my own, here), Cornerstone Research has released (here) its 2007 report on securities class action filings. Cornerstone’s January 3, 2008 press release describing the report can be found here. The numbers in the Cornerstone report differ from those in the
A Closer Look at the 2007 Securities Lawsuits
The first of the 2007 year-end securities class action reports has already appeared (refer here), with others soon to follow. As I have noted elsewhere (most recently here), the most important securities trend during 2007 was the return of lawsuit filing activity to historical levels, after a two-year lull. But there were numerous
A Closer Look at the 2007 Subprime-Related Securities Lawsuits
In its 2007 year-end study of securities class action trends (here), NERA Economic Consulting noted that the "sharp increase" in 2007 securities lawsuit filings was "driven in part by litigation related to subprime lending," an observation I have also noted elsewhere. Given the importance of the subprime lawsuit filings to the overall
Top Ten D & O Stories of 2007
With the year-end fast approaching, it is time to take a look back and review the top D & O stories of 2007. It was an eventful year, with some important developments that will have implications for the year ahead, and perhaps for years to come. Here are the top stories, with the year’s most
Updates and Notes
Options Backdating Developments: On December 21, 2007, McAfee announced (here) that it had reached a tentative settlement in the pending federal and state derivative lawsuits related to its options practices. The company said that it “has accrued $13.8 million” that amounts “related to expected payments pursuant to the tentative settlement.” The company’s press
NERA Releases 2007 Year-End Securities Lawsuit Report
On December 21, 2007, NERA Economic Consulting released (here) its 2007 Year-End Update analyzing recent trends in shareholder class actions. The NERA reports notes, as I have discussed in prior reports (most recently here), that securities lawsuit filing activity levels returned to historical levels in the second half of 2007. In addition,
Subprime: The Truth-Telling (and the Lawsuits) Yet to Come
The various central banks’ efforts to improve short-term liquidity in the global financial system have dominated the headlines the business pages in recent days, most recently with respect to the news that the European Central Bank has injected an astonishing $501.7 billion of lending capacity into the banking system, an amount that the Wall Street
Another Securities Class Settlement Complication: Government Intervention
In recent posts (most recently here), I have discussed the potential difficulties that opt-out actions may present for securities class settlements. As if that were not complication enough, now the government wants to get into the act. As discussed below, the Department of Justice has appeared to object to the pending settlement of the
Subprime Litigation Wave Hits UBS – and Other Web Notes
In a prior post (here), I compared the similarity of the piecemeal way that UBS, Merrill Lynch and Citibank have disclosed their subprime-related asset valuation write-downs. Now UBS has one more thing in common with the other two banks – it has been named as a defendant in a securities class action lawsuit.