Add E*Trade and SunTrust Bank to the growing list of companies that have been sued in purported class action lawsuits on behalf of auction rate securities investors against companies that sold them the instruments. The plaintiffs’ attorney’s April 2, 2008 press release regarding the E*Trade auction rate securities lawsuit can be found here, and
More Problems with Foreign Securities Litigants
As courts have wrestled with the issue whether certain foreign shareholders can act as lead plaintiffs, or indeed can even be included in the plaintiff shareholder class, they have faced an ever-broader array of questions and challenges. The kinds of issues that foreign shareholder litigants present are illustrated in the February 13, 2008 lead plaintiff
First-Filed Subprime Lawsuit Dismissed (Without Prejudice)
On February 7, 2007, New Century Financial Corp. became the first company to be named in subprime-related securities lawsuit. On January 31, 2008, just short of one year later, Judge Dean Pregerson of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, but without prejudice and
About Those Subprime D & O Loss Estimates
Over the past several weeks, several industry observers and analysts have tried to put a number on the insurance industry’s aggregate subprime-related loss exposure. At one end, Bear Stearns on January 24, 2008 estimated the industry’s exposure at $8-9 billion (refer here). By contrast, on February 8, 2008, Lehman Brothers estimated (here)
Expanded Subprime Litigation Wave Hits Sallie Mae
In a prior post (here), I noted that the subprime meltdown story is no longer just about subprime, and that the crisis spreading to other types of credit could stretch the subprime litigation wave to areas outside of subprime. The lawsuit filed today against SLM Corporation (better known as "Sallie Mae")
Subprime Litigation Wave Hits State Street
On January 3, 2008, State Street Corporation announced (here) that for the fourth quarter of 2007, it will be establishing a reserve of $618 million, on a pre-tax basis, "to address legal exposure and other costs associated with the underperformance of … fixed-income strategies managed by… the company’s investment management arm." The net
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