Is a company’s action against a corporate executive to recover the costs of defense the company advanced on his behalf “restitutionary” in nature and are the amounts involved therefore precluded from coverage under the D&O insurance policy’s definition of Loss? In an opinion that undoubtedly will gladden the hearts of policyholder-side advocates, a California appellate court held that it is not. As discussed below, there are a number of interesting features to the court’s opinion. The California Court of Appeals’ November 12, 2024 opinion can be found here.Continue Reading CA Court: Suit to Recover Executive’s Defense Fees not “Restitutionary”
Editor’s Note: Today’s Sunday Arts installment excerpts a post from my very earliest days of blogging. The May 25, 2006 post (
A very long ten years ago – before the financial crisis, before the Euro crisis, before the Brexit vote — there was the options backdating scandal. The wave of litigation the scandal stirred up took its time to work its way through the system, but eventually the litigation was resolved and the scandal moved into the past. Even though the the scandal moved into the realm of history several years ago, there was one small but important unresolved item. The criminal case against 
For a period beginning in 2006, plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a wave of options backdating securities class action lawsuits. Almost all of these cases have now been resolved, although one case continues to grind through the appellate courts. Now that the cases are largely resolved, it may be time to calculate the final tally. In the 
The options backdating scandal may now be ancient history, but questions surrounding insurance coverage for the scandal’s consequences apparently continue to live on. In a 
Although some noteworthy settlements from the subprime-related securities class action litigation wave have started to accumulate (refer for example 
On January 27, 2010, 
Over the years, legislative reforms of the U.S. securities laws have cycled back and forth, between initiatives, on the one hand, to discourage abusive litigation and, on the other hand, to restrain corporate misconduct. In the current Wall Street bailout, post-Madoff environment, sentiment may be running high for legislative reforms that could expand liabilities under