In the latest signal of the increasing significance of collective investor actions outside of the U.S., on December 5, 2016, Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay £800 million ($1 billion) in a settlement with three of the five investor claimant groups that had sued the bank in the U.K. for alleged misrepresentations in connection with its £12 billion pound fundraising effort just months before the British government bailed out the bank. The case will go forward as to the remaining claimant groups, with whom the bank will now attempt to reach a settlement. If the bank is unable to settle with the remaining claimant groups, the case could proceed to trial in March 2017. The partial settlement is by far the largest collective investor action recovery in the U.K. RBS’s December 5, 2016 SEC filing to which its press release announcing the partial settlement is attached can be found here. A December 5, 2016 Reuters article describing the settlement can be found here.
Continue Reading RBS Reaches $1 Billion Partial Settlement of Credit Crisis-Related Collective Investor Action
U.K. securities litigation
Investors File U.K. Financial Misrepresentation Claim Against Tesco
A group of 124 institutional investors have joined a claim filed in London’s high court on October 31, 2016 against Tesco seeking damages for the company’s alleged financial misrepresentations. The claim, which seeks over £100 million in alleged damages, was filed on the investors’ behalf by the Stewarts law firm, and is supported by Bentham Europe Limited, an affiliate of Australian group IMF Bentham, a funding litigation firm whose shares are publicly traded on the ASX.
Continue Reading Investors File U.K. Financial Misrepresentation Claim Against Tesco
RBS Investors, Closed Out of U.S. Courts, Pursue Claims in the U.K.
As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, investors who purchased their shares in a company’s stock on a non-U.S. exchange are unable to pursue securities claims against the company or its management in U.S. courts. I have long thought these investors’ preclusion from U.S. courts would…