A Question of Efficiency
Will quick review of a final judgment in just one of many cases that make up a large multi-district litigation bog the MDL process down — or make it work better?
Defense lawyers insist that consolidation of cases before a single district judge (by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation) changes
Get ready for the Supreme Court to resolve a question that has divided courts of appeals for years:
Whether and in what circumstances is the dismissal of an action that has been consolidated with other suits immediately appealable?
If that doesn't sound sexy enough for you, consider that the issue arises in massive litigation over
A June 25th ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for workers to bring claims under the Employee Retirement Income Secuirity Act of 1974 against ERISA plan fiduciaries who imprudently allow or require the employees to invest in their employers' stock. But the window of liability for imprudent fiduciaries might not last very long
Basic survives — barely
The Supreme Court held today that plaintiffs in securities fraud cases may continue to use a 26-year-old presumption that "the price of stock traded in an efficient market reflects all public, material information — including material misstatements." Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., No. 13-317, slip op. at
Apple settles
Apple has settled up to $841 million of antitrust claims by state attorneys-general and a nationwide class of consumers who bought e-books from Apple and its publisher co-conspirators.
The pact comes almost a year after U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in New York held Apple civilly liable for conspiracy to fix prices, a
Investors who wished for a helping hand in pursuing claims against banks that sold them exotic debt instruments instead got a kick in the pants from the Second Circuit today.
No no-admit deals
In 2011, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff famously refused to approve a consent decree between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup. The pact
Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner savaged a district court for approving a class action settlement that paid lead class counsel an $11 million fee while providing class members with benefits worth, in Judge Posner's reckoning, no more than $8.5 million. Eubank v. Pella Corp., No. 13-2091 (7th Cir. June 2, 2014).
The fact that
A rule against making too much money?
Plenty of public companies pay their executives very large salaries, bonuses, and other goodies, including stock grants, stock option awards, and rides in fancy jet planes.
The WSJ recently reported that the median pay for CEOs of "big companies" totaled $11.4 million in 2013. The biggest earner, Oracle's
Hershey hosts.
If you find yourself this in the neighborhood of Hershey, Pennsylvania — the Sweetest Place on Earth — you may want to see if you can sneak into a two-hour discussion of "Current Issues in Multidistrict Litigation and Class Actions". The event kicks off the first full day of the Third Circuit Judicial
Being obnoxious doesn't pay. Or does it?
In one six-month period, Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg griped to Northwest Airline 24 times about "travel problems, including 9 incidents of [his] bag arriving late at the luggage carousel". Northwest, Inc. v. Ginsberg, No. 12-462, slip op. at 2 (U.S. Apr. 2, 2014). Mr. Ginsberg also "continually
