The 53 court-approved securities class action settlements reported in 2012 represent a 14-year low, according to Securities Class Action Settlements—2012 Review and Analysis by Cornerstone Research. This represents an 18 percent decrease from the number of approved settlements in 2011, and a decline of more than 45 percent from the 10-year average from 2002 through 2011.

As securities class actions historically take a number of years to settle, the decrease in settlements may be due in part to the relatively low number of securities class actions filed in 2009 and 2010. Despite the decrease in the number of cases settled, total settlement amounts increased by more than 100 percent in 2012 compared with 2011, with the number of mega-settlements (settlements in excess of $100 million) accounting for nearly 75 percent of all 2012 settlement dollars. One-third of the settlements in 2012 were for issuers in the financial services industry, with the technology and pharmaceutical industries being the next most prevalent sectors.

The average reported settlement amount dramatically increased from 2011 levels—in excess of 150 percent (from the inflation-adjusted amount of $21.6 million in 2011 to $54.7 million in 2012). The average settlement amount in 2012, however, is closer to the average for all prior post–Reform Act cases.

…continue reading: Securities Class Action Settlement Amounts Increase from 2011

This report looks at litigation challenging M&A transactions, filed by shareholders of large U.S. public target companies. These lawsuits usually take the form of class actions. Plaintiff attorneys typically allege that the target’s board of directors violated its fiduciary duties by conducting a flawed sales process that failed to maximize shareholder value. Common allegations include the failure to conduct a sufficiently competitive sale, the existence of restrictive deal protections that discouraged additional bids, and conflicts of interests, such as executive retention or change-of-control payments to executives. Another typical allegation is that the target board failed to disclose enough information about the sale process and the financial advisor’s valuation.

We used Thomson Reuters’ SDC database to obtain a list of all acquisitions of U.S. public targets valued at or over $100 million, announced in each year. We searched the SEC filings of the targets and acquirers for discussion of shareholder litigation. After the deals were closed, we used court dockets to trace litigation outcomes.

…continue reading: Shareholder Litigation Involving Mergers and Acquisitions: February 2013 Update

Federal securities fraud class action filing activity slowed sharply in 2012. There were 152 filings in 2012 compared with 188 in 2011. The number of federal securities fraud class actions (also referred to in this report as filings, class actions, or cases) filed was 21 percent below the annual average of 193 filings observed between 1997 and 2011 (Figure 1).

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The following trends are noteworthy for 2012:

…continue reading: Securities Class Action Filings in 2012

This is the fourth in a series of reports that analyzes the characteristics of professional liability lawsuits filed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) against directors and officers of failed financial institutions. Lawsuits may also be filed by the FDIC against other related parties, such as accounting firms, law firms, appraisal firms, or mortgage brokers, but we generally do not address such lawsuits here.

Overview of Litigation Activity

FDIC litigation against directors and officers (D&O) of failed financial institutions has increased markedly in the fourth quarter of 2012, after a lull during the second and third quarters. In October, November, and through December 7, the FDIC filed nine new lawsuits against directors and officers of failed institutions. If additional lawsuits are filed in the last few weeks of December, the number of filings in the fourth quarter will be higher than in the first quarter, when nine lawsuits were filed. Twenty-three lawsuits have been filed to date in 2012. If the recent pace of new filings persists for the balance of 2012, we expect 26 lawsuits will be filed by the end of the year. This reflects an increased level of filing activity compared with 16 in 2011 and two in 2010. In total, 41 lawsuits have been filed since 2010 against the directors and officers of 40 institutions (two separate lawsuits have been filed against various IndyMac directors and officers).

…continue reading: Characteristics of FDIC Lawsuits against Directors and Officers

Federal securities class action filing activity in the first half of 2012 has decreased compared with 2011. There were 88 filings in the first six months of 2012, down 6 percent from both the first half and second half of 2011. If current trends hold, there will be 176 filings in 2012 by year-end, less than the 1997 to 2011 average of 193 but in line with the 2009 to 2011 average of 177.

The slight decrease in total filings was largely due to a substantial decline in Chinese reverse merger (CRM) and merger and acquisition (M&A) filings. There were five CRM-related filings and seven M&A-related filings in the past six months. Compared with the first half of 2011, CRM filings were down 79 percent and M&A filings were down 67 percent. Compared with the second half of 2011, CRM filings were down 44 percent and M&A filings were down 68 percent. Despite the drop in CRM-related filings, filings against foreign issuers as a percentage of all filings were greater than every year except 2011. The decrease in M&A filings easily exceeds the 15 percent decline in the number of M&A deals in the first half of 2012 compared with the first half of 2011. [1] While the number of nontraditional filings has declined, traditional securities class action filings have increased by 23 percent since the second half of 2011.

…continue reading: Securities Class Action Filings

As widely reported in the press, seizures of banks and thrifts by regulatory authorities began to subside in 2011. Throughout the year, 92 institutions were seized compared with 157 in 2010 and 140 in 2009. In contrast, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation professional liability lawsuits targeting failed financial institutions began to increase in 2011. These are lawsuits in which the FDIC, as receiver for failed financial institutions, brings professional liability claims against directors and officers of those institutions and against other related parties, such as accounting firms, law firms, appraisal firms, or mortgage brokers.

Overview

From July 2, 2010, through January 27, 2012, the FDIC filed 21 lawsuits related to 20 failed institutions (two of the 21 lawsuits were associated with IndyMac Bank, F.S.B). Of the 21 lawsuits, two were filed in 2010, 16 in 2011, and three in January 2012. Aggregate damages claimed in the complaints totaled $1.98 billion.

…continue reading: FDIC Lawsuits Targeting Failed Financial Institutions

There were 65 court-approved securities class action settlements involving $1.4 billion in total settlement funds in 2011—the lowest number of approved settlements and corresponding total settlement dollars in more than 10 years, according to Securities Class Action Settlements—2011 Review and Analysis, an annual report by Cornerstone Research. The number of settlements approved in 2011 decreased by almost 25 percent compared with 2010 and was more than 35 percent below the average for the preceding 10 years. Further, the total dollar value of settlements declined by 58 percent, from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $1.4 billion in 2011. The change in the number of settlements from 2010 to 2011 is one of the two largest year-over-year declines and, combined with a year-over-year decrease in settlements in 2010, the first time there has been a decline in the number of settled cases for two consecutive years.

…continue reading: Securities Class Action Settlements

Shareholder litigation challenging merger and acquisition (M&A) deals has increased substantially in recent years. To study this increase and characterize the recent litigation, Cornerstone Research and Professor Robert Daines of the Stanford Law School reviewed reports of M&A shareholder litigation in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings related to acquisitions of U.S. public companies valued over $100 million and announced in 2010 or 2011. [1] We found that almost every acquisition of that size elicited multiple lawsuits, which were filed shortly after the deal’s announcement and often settled before the deal’s closing. Only a small fraction of these lawsuits resulted in payments to shareholders; the majority settled for additional disclosures or, less frequently, changes in merger terms, such as deal protection provisions. Interestingly, while requiring additional disclosures is a common outcome, we have not encountered a case in which shareholders rejected the deal after the additional disclosures were provided.

In this report, we provide statistics on recent M&A shareholder lawsuits, describing their prevalence, filing timelines, venue choices, outcomes, and settlement terms.

…continue reading: Developments in M&A Shareholder Litigation

Federal securities fraud class action filing activity increased in 2011. For the full year of 2011, there were 188 filings compared with 176 in 2010. The number of class actions filed was 3.1 percent below the annual average of 194 filings observed between 1997 and 2010 (Figure 1). Filing activity in the second half of the year equaled the activity in the first half. A total of 94 federal securities fraud class actions (filings, class actions, or cases) were filed in both the first and second halves of 2011. Building on a trend first seen last year, 43 of the filings in 2011 were associated with merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions.

Litigation against Chinese issuers listed on U.S. exchanges through reverse mergers represented a major component of filings activity during 2011, although evidence indicates that this type of litigation is subsiding. In 2011, 33 such class actions were filed, constituting 17.6 percent of all federal securities class actions. This activity occurred predominantly in the first half of the year when 24 of these actions were filed; only nine were brought in the last six months, including five filed in the last three months of the year. In 2010, there were nine such class actions filed. The report illustrates the differences in allegations between Chinese reverse merger filings since 2010 and other Classic Filings, and indicates that complaints relating to Chinese reverse mergers statistically are more likely to allege violations of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and financial restatements and are less likely to allege insider trading.

…continue reading: Securities Class Action Filings in 2011

The recent court decisions in United States v. Anthony Cuti et al. and United States v. Ferguson et al. highlight the increasing importance of correctly analyzing loss causation in criminal cases. In United States v. Cuti, a New York federal judge applied considerably shorter prison sentences than were recommended by prosecutors for two former executives of Duane Reade Inc. convicted of securities fraud. [1]

In United States v. Ferguson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned criminal convictions of four former General Re Corporation (Gen Re) executives and a former American International Group Inc. (AIG) executive. [2] Both court decisions were driven by conclusions that prosecutors failed to properly connect the alleged fraud to any actual losses.

…continue reading: The Increasing Importance of Loss Causation Analysis