The securities class action lawsuits filed last week against failing or troubled banks felt as if the plaintiffs’ attorneys filing the suits were typing their complaints directly from the text of the day’s newspapers. Another suit filed last week referred to a slightly earlier but even more dramatic news story, the tragic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, of a Norfolk Southern freight train. The events surrounding the train disaster undoubtedly will be the subject of personal and environmental lawsuits for years to come. Now, the high-profile event is also the subject of a securities class action lawsuit, in the most recent example of the ways that operational events, rather than financial disclosures, increasingly can lead to securities litigation. A copy of the March 16, 2023, complaint can be found here.Continue Reading Ripped from the Headlines: Norfolk Southern Hit with Securities Suit
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In what is one of the largest ever shareholder derivative settlements, the parties to the Cardinal Health opioid-related shareholder derivative litigation have agreed to settle the suit for $124 million. The Cardinal Health settlement, which is subject to court approval, is the latest massive settlement of opioid-related derivative litigation. It also represents another example of a massive settlement of a breach of the duty of oversight claim. The settlement is to be funded entirely by Cardinal Health’s D&O insurers. A copy of the plaintiffs’ May 25, 2022 unopposed motion for preliminary approval of the settlement can be found 
In a pattern that is becoming familiar, Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicle company that recently merged into a publicly traded SPAC and that was the subject of an even more recent short seller report, has been hit with a securities class action lawsuit. The defendants named include only executives of the vehicle company and do not include any former officers of the SPAC. A copy of the March 18, 2021 complaint can be found 
Under claims made insurance policies, policyholders must provide timely notice of claim to their insurers in order to trigger coverage. Late notice is among the most common reasons that insurers deny coverage for claims. In order to try to avoid a coverage denial for late notice, policyholders have tried to argue that late notice should not preclude coverage where the policyholder renewed the coverage and where successive policies with the same insurer are in place. In a recent decision, an Ohio appellate court, applying Ohio law, rejected a policyholder’s attempt to rely on this kind of continuity of coverage argument. The court’s decision raises some interesting issues, as discussed below.
A standard D&O insurance policy provision specifies that the term “Claim” means, in part, a “written demand for monetary damages or non-monetary relief.” A recurring question that arises under this language is: what exactly is “non-monetary relief”? In a recent case, an Ohio intermediate appellate court considered the question whether a demand for a software audit from a software industry group alleging unauthorized software copying constituted a written demand for non-monetary relief; the court concluded that it did and that it therefore that the demand represented a claim under the applicable D&O policy. The court also considered the applicability of the policy intellectual property (IP) infringement exclusion. A copy of the Ohio Court of Appeals, Third Appellate District’s October 11, 2016 opinion can be found