One of the legal issues that attracts continuous vigorous debate is the question of whether or not class actions in general, and securities class actions in particular, produce a social benefit sufficient to justify their sometimes enormous costs. This question receives an interesting and readable analysis in an article in the November 19, 2015 issue of The New York Review of Books entitled “The Cure for Corporate Wrongdoing: Class Actions vs. Individual Prosecutions” (here) in which Southern District of New York Judge Jed Rakoff reviews Columbia Law Professor John Coffee’s new book, Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future (here). While Judge Rakoff provides his (quite positive) assessment of Professor Coffee’s book, he also delivers his own analysis of the issues Professor Coffee raises, as well as of the prescriptions Professor Coffee proposes for the class action defects he has identified, as discussed below.
Continue Reading Class Action Litigation, Professor Coffee, and Judge Rakoff
Judge Rakoff
Second Circuit Rebuffs Rakoff, Grants Stay to Hear Appeal on Settlement Ruling
In a sharply worded March 15, 2012 per curiam opinion (here), a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit granted the motions of Citigroup and the SEC to stay district court proceedings in the SEC’s enforcement action against the company, so that the appellate court could consider the merits of the question of…
A Closer Look at Judge Rakoff’s Rejection of the SEC’s Settlement with Citigroup
In a strongly worded November 28, 2011 opinion (here), Southern District of New York Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the proposed $285 million settlement of the enforcement action that the SEC brought against Citigroup Capital Markets. But while he emphatically rejected the proposed settlement, his opinion may also suggest how the SEC might salvage…
Citigroup and the SEC, Judge Rakoff Has a Few Questions for You
After the October 19, 2011 news that Citigroup had reached an agreement to pay $285 million settle SEC charges that it had misled investors in a $1 billion collateralized debt obligation linked to risky mortgages, a number of commentators raised questions about the settlement.
Among other concerns noted was that neither the SEC’s action…