In the following guest post, Nessim Mezrahi takes a detailed look at the factors driving D&O profitability and the securities class action loss mitigation steps insurers can take to improve profitability. Mezrahi is co-founder and CEO of SAR, a securities class action data analytics and software company. A version of this article previously was published on the PLUS Blog. I would like to thank Nessim 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 site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Nessim’s article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: SCA Loss Mitigation is Critical for D&O Profitability
In the latest example of claimants seeking to assert the newly revitalized type of claim for breach of the duty of oversight against corporate boards, plaintiff shareholders have filed a derivative lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court against certain past and current directors of technology company SolarWinds, based on the massive cybersecurity incident involving the company’s software and systems discovered in December 2020. As discussed below, there are several interesting features of this lawsuit in light of recent developments involving claims for alleged breaches of the duty of oversight. A copy of the heavily redacted publicly available version of the plaintiffs’ complaint against the SolarWinds board can be found 
In what is one of the largest derivative lawsuit settlements ever, and — according to the statement from one of the co-lead plaintiffs in the case — the largest settlement ever in Delaware of a Caremark/breach of the duty of oversight case, the parties to the Boeing 737 Max Crash shareholder derivative suit in Delaware Chancery Court have agreed to settle the case for a payment of $237.5 million, all of which is to be funded by D&O insurance. As part of the settlement, the company also agreed to adopt several safety and oversight protocols and other corporate governance measures. The settlement is subject to court approval. A copy of the November 5, 2021 statement of the co-lead plaintiff, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, about the settlement can be found 
An online event firm that experienced a ramp-up in users during the pandemic and that completed an IPO in early in February 2021 has been hit with a securities class action lawsuit after the company disclosed that many of the customers that signed on during the early days of the pandemic did not renew or renewed only at lower service levels. This new lawsuit is the latest of example of the ways that more than a year and half in the pandemic continues to affect businesses and continues to lead to securities class action litigation and other D&O claims. The November 3, 2021 complaint filed against ON24 can be found 
For those whose job it is to worry about the U.S. litigation risk for non-U.S. companies, the focus historically has been on the 
As I have noted on this site, the SEC has in recent months filed SPAC-related enforcement actions, including the action filed in July 2021 against Stable Road Acquisition Corporation (discussed 
A Canadian-based deep-sea mining company is the latest firm to be hit with a SPAC-related securities class action lawsuit. The company, which plans to mine the seabed for materials to be used in electric vehicles batteries, merged with a SPAC in September 2021. The company’s share price recently declined following news reports and a short-seller report questioning the company’s financing, licensing, and its claimed sustainability credentials. A copy of the October 28, 2021 complaint can be found 
In the latest SPAC-related securities class action lawsuit filing, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a securities class action suit against electric vehicle company Lightning eMotors and certain of its directors and officers, after the company disappointed investors in its first post-SPAC-merger financial release. As discussed below, the Lightning eMotors SPAC-merger transaction was already the subject of a separate, prior Delaware Chancery Court action. A copy of the new federal court securities class action lawsuit complaint can be found 
In one of the largest shareholder derivative lawsuit settlements ever, involving a very unusual derivative claim under Cayman Island law prosecuted in a U.S. court on behalf of a China-based Cayman Islands company, the parties to the Renren derivative litigation have agreed to settle the case for at least $300 million. The settlement is subject to a “true up” process that could increase the ultimate amount of the settlement payments. The settlement is also subject to court approval. The parties’ October 7, 2021 settlement stipulation can be found