On March 16, 2022, in a unanimous decision the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed a Superior Court ruling that a securities class action and a later-filed opt out action were related claims, and thus the subsequent action was...more
On March 9, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Sentynl Therapeutics, Inc. v. U.S. Specialty Ins. Co, 2022 WL 706941 (9th Cir. Mar. 9, 2022) (applying California law), affirmed a district court’s holding...more
On August 25, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Allen v. GreatBanc Trust Co., No. 15-3569, 2016 WL 4474730 (7th Cir. 2016), held that (1) the defendant in an ERISA case, rather than the plaintiff,...more
In Housing. Auth. of New Orleans v. Landmark Ins. Co., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24419 (E.D. La. Feb. 29, 2016), the court provided a rare analysis of the interplay between a duty to defend in a D&O policy and the allocation...more
On June 22, 2015, the 11th Circuit affirmed a Georgia federal court decision that there was no coverage under a director’s and officer’s (D&O) insurance policy for claims asserted by beneficiaries of a family trust against a...more
In Tibble v. Edison International, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the scope of the duty of prudence owed by ERISA fiduciaries. Although ostensibly a case about the statute of limitations, the Court ruled that trustees of...more
5/29/2015
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Breach of Duty ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Duty to Monitor ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Mutual Funds ,
Retirement Plan ,
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Statute of Limitations ,
Tibble v Edison Int
On April 20, 2015, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously held that when an insured fails to seek its insurer’s consent to settle a claim, the insured cannot pursue litigation against its insurer to recover settlement amounts...more
The New York Court of Appeals recently confirmed that the heightened timeliness of disclaimer requirement in New York Insurance Law § 3420(d)(2) does not apply to claims arising from property damage, in KeySpan Gas East Corp....more
Over the past year, directors and officers have been anticipating the Supreme Court’s ruling in Halliburton Co. et al. v. Erica John Fund, Inc., No. 13-317. In its recent 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court retained the...more
On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoffer, declared that no “presumption of prudence” applied to fiduciaries of “employee stock ownership plans” (ESOPs). ...more
In November 2011, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ignited a firestorm of commentary and concern among the securities bar by declining to approve a settlement between the SEC and Citigroup in which the...more
Litigation over challenges to corporate mergers has swelled in recent years, exposing directors, officers and their D&O insurers to large amounts of defense costs and potentially great liability. The Delaware Chancery Court...more
On November 12, 2013, in Quellos Group LLC v. Federal Insurance Company, the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of two excess professional liability insurers because the excess policies “require[d]...more
Recently, in IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund v. Deutsche Bank AG, No. 11-cv-4209, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155136 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 29, 2013), District Judge Katherine Forrest declined to certify a class of securities plaintiffs and...more
On October 16, 2013, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, in Aleynikov v. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., found that a former vice president and computer programmer was an “officer” of Goldman Sachs & Co.,...more
On April 15, 2013, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, granted the insured’s request for the production of certain claims file material and previously sealed discovery in Estée Lauder Inc. v....more
In a line of recent cases, the 2nd Circuit has limited ERISA plaintiffs’ claims for breach of the duty of prudence by holding that investments of benefit plan funds in employer securities pursuant to plans calling for such...more
In a recent unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has five years from the date when an alleged fraud begins – not from the date when the SEC uncovers the fraud – to...more
In Amgen, Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, No. 11-1085 (Slip Op. Feb. 27, 2013), the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 majority opinion (Ginsburg, J.), affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit’s...more