In October 2000, the SEC promulgated Rule 10b5-1 to provide company insiders with a way to trade their shares in company stock without incurring securities law liability, through the pre-trading adoption of a written trading plan. Despite the Rule’s protective purpose, concerns have arisen more recently about Rule 10b5-1 plan abuses, as I noted in

In a development that is in my experience absolutely unprecedented, Phillip Bennett, the former CEO of defunct futures trader Refco, after having pled guilty to criminal charges, is actively cooperating with the lead plaintiffs’ counsel in the civil securities lawsuit pending against the company and its former directors and officers. As discussed below

Among the many consequences of an increasingly global economy is that investor interest in pursuing claims for securities wrongdoing has become a more nearly universal phenomenon. While collective-style lawsuits largely had been restricted to claims in U.S. courts under U.S. law, a growing list of countries are adopting at least some elements of U.S.-style securities

In the past week, plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a raft of new subprime and credit crisis related securities lawsuits. The cases involve a wide variety of claimants and defendants, and a diverse array of legal theories. But while the lawsuits themselves are diverse, they do all evidence a common theme, which is that the subprime and

The parties in the SCOR Holding (Switzerland) AG class action securities litigation seem to have devised a “global” settlement strategy to resolve the problems arising from the cross-border distribution of would-be class members.

First, some background. The lawsuit relates to alleged misrepresentations and omissions purportedly made by SCOR Holding’s predecessor in interest, Converium. Converium was domiciled

A lawsuit filed late last week against First Marblehead Corporation underscores that the current lawsuit onslaught so often referred to as the “subprime” litigation wave is, and really has been for awhile, about so much more than just subprime. Although we are probably stuck with the “subprime” label as a shorthand way to describe these