D&O liability

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The March 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is long enough ago that it in many ways seems like ancient history. The fact is that the bank’s failure was the second largest in U.S. history, and its collapse continues to cast a shadow over the U.S. banking industry. Private civil litigation against company executives, on behalf of investors and others, followed immediately in the wake of the bank’s collapse, but at least until now the post-collapse lawsuits have not included an action by the FDIC, as often follows after a bank failure. However, as discussed below, on December 17, 2024, the FDIC’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to authorize the agency staff’s request for authorization to file a suit against six former officers and 11 former directors of SVB and its holding company, SVB Financial Group.Continue Reading FDIC Board of Directors Authorizes Suit Against SVB Officials

As long-time readers of this blog know, one of the long-range concerns in the D&O insurance industry is the possible exposures of corporate directors and officers to liability claims arising from climate change (as discussed most recently here). In the following guest post, attorneys from the Legalign Global Alliance member firms take a comprehensive look at the climate change-related risks and exposure that corporate directors and officers may face, as well as at the climate change-related D&O claims developments in a variety of different countries. A version of this article previously was published as a Legalign Global client alert. 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 blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is the authors’ article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: D&O Exposures to Climate Change Risk

In yet another one of his early morning messages, late last week President Donald Trump stirred up a squall by suggesting in a tweet that the SEC should study doing away with quarterly reporting requirements in favor of a system of semi-annual reports. The suggestion fits within the larger debate about whether or not reporting companies have an excessively short-term focus and the related but separate debate about whether regulatory requirements impose excessive costs on businesses. The idea of eliminating quarterly reporting raises a number of important issues, and may raise some important questions for the D&O insurance industry as well.
Continue Reading Is it Time to End Quarterly Reporting?

One of the most closely watched issues in the world of D&O is the extent to which cybersecurity-related issues will lead to liability for corporate directors and officers. In the following guest post, Tarun Krishnakumar, a New Delhi attorney qualified in India and California specializing on issues relating to emerging technology , takes a look at the corporate liability framework under Indian laws with respect to emerging cybersecurity exposures. I would like to thank Tarun for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Tarun’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Cybersecurity and D&O Liability: Emerging Concerns under Indian Law

Andrew G. Lipton

Laura Schmidt

Although a number of high-profile data breaches have led to D&O claims, so far the plaintiffs’ track record in these kinds of cases has been poor. However, as a result of a number of recent developments, there may be good reason for corporate directors and officers to be concerned about these kinds of claims going forward, as discussed in the following guest post by Andrew G. Lipton and Laura Schmidt, both associates at the White & Williams law firm. I would like to thank Andrew and Laura for submitting their article for publication as a guest post. 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 Andrew and Laura’s guest post.  
Continue Reading Guest Post: Breaching the Firewall: D&O Exposure from Cybersecurity Incidents

klein_dennis_web
Dennis Klein

The financial crisis generated a great deal of litigation, much involving the directors and officers of companies affected by the crisis. As the crisis recedes further into the past and as the litigation it generated winds down, it is worth taking a look at what happened to determine what can be learned from the litigation. In the following guest post, Dennis Klein of the Hughes Hubbard & Reed law firm provides an overview of what he views as the takeaways for corporate directors and officers from the financial crisis D&O litigation. A longer version of this article will appear in the April 2016 issue of The Review of Banking and Financial Services. I would like to thank Dennis for his willingness to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to readers of this site. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Dennis’s guest post.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Seven Lessons Learned from D&O Litigation During the Financial Crisis  

homedepotAfter claimants filed shareholders’ data breach-related derivative suits against the boards of Target (here) and Wyndham Worldwide (here), a number of commentators (including me) asked whether we could see a wave of cybersecurity related D&O lawsuits. Interestingly, since these two lawsuits were filed more than a year ago, there have been…

paA question that frequently recurs when I am speaking to directors and officers of non-profit organizations is why – given that their firms have no shareholders – they need to bother with D&O insurance. The reality is that even though officials at non-profit firms don’t have to worry about the possibility of shareholder claims, non-profit…