In this guest post, Frank Hülsberg and Burkhard Fassbach take a look at a recent Reuters special report about the use of cyber hacking and other espionage techniques in litigation and consider the D&O liability and insurance implications. Frank Hülsberg is a Chartered Accountant and Tax Advisor in Düsseldorf, Partner Advisory and Member of the Executive Board at Grant Thornton AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft in Germany, and Burkhard Fassbach is a D&O-lawyer in private practice in Germany. I would like to thank Frank and Burkhard for allowing me to publish their article on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Frank and Burkhard’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Spy Phishing Attacks Against Lawyers and Litigants
Many D&O insurance programs consist of multiple layers of insurance arranged with a layer of primary insurance and one or more layers of excess insurance. In order to ensure that the insurance in the program operates consistently and uniformly, the excess insurance is usually written on a so-called “follow form” basis, meaning that the excess insurance incorporates the primary’s policy’s terms and conditions, subject to any express provisions in the excess policy to the contrary. A recent case from the Court of Appeal for Ontario considered the meaning and impact of excess follow form coverage in the context of a dispute over whether a policyholder could exercise an option to purchase extended reported period coverage from its excess insurer. The decision, while arguable unremarkable in and of itself, nevertheless may have some important lessons for excess insurers. A copy of the Ontario Appeal Court’s July 13, 2022 decision can be found 
In a long-standing tradition, I have annually reprised on this site over the July 4th holiday an essay I wrote several years ago about summertime at our lake house in Pentwater, Michigan. This year, I was 
In most instances, corporate officers cannot be held personally liable for the misconduct of the company they serve. However, there are occasions when corporate officers can be held personally liable in their individual capacities for corporate acts or omissions. A recent decision by a California intermediate appellate court held that an individual who served as a company’s CEO and CFO can be held liable for the claimants’ unpaid wages. As discussed below, the ruling represents an interesting example of the circumstances in which individuals can be held liable for company misconduct. A copy of the California Court of Appeal’s June 28, 2022 decision can be found 
In the following guest post, the authors revisit the question of whether or not securities class action lawsuits against development-stage biotech companies are likelier to survive a motion to dismiss compared to securities suits against other kinds of companies. As the authors report below, they conclude from their research that the suits against biotech companies are not likelier to survive dismissal motions. The authors of this guest post are: Doug Greene, BakerHostetler, Leader, Securities and Governance Litigation Team; Genevieve York-Erwin, BakerHostetler, Partner; Mike Tomasulo, Baldwin Risk Partners, Managing Partner, Management Liability National Practice Leader: Emily Baxter, BakerHostetler, Associate; and Alex Karambelas, BakerHostetler, Associate. A version of this article previously was published on the PLUS Blog. I would like to thank the authors for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is the authors’ article 
Regular readers of this blog know my view that the rise of collective investor actions outside the United States is one of the most important developments in the world of directors’ and officers’ liability in recent years. The increase in collective investor actions has been particularly noteworthy in Europe. In the following guest post, ISS Securities Class Action Services and the FOX Williams law jointly report on the current state of play in European Class Actions. The ISS SCAS authors are Jeffrey Lubitz, Managing Director, and Elisa Mendoza, Esq., Associate Director. The Fox Williams authors are Andrew Hill, Partner; Anisha Patel, Senior Associate; and Sam Tarrant and Olwen Mair, Associates. A .pdf version of the report is available 
In what is the largest case dispositions of its type that I have ever seen, a court in Tokyo has ordered four executives of Tokyo Electric Power Holdings (Tepco) to pay the company 13.321 trillion yen – the equivalent of $97 billion — based on the court’s finding that the individuals had negligently failed to take steps that would have prevented the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. This verdict, which is described in a July 13, 2022 Wall Street Journal article (
It is so interesting to me that, notwithstanding the passage of time since the initial coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in March 2020, plaintiff shareholders continue to file COVID-19-related securities class action lawsuits — as we saw, for example, in the infrastructure overcapacity lawsuit