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Delaware Supreme Court Rejects Fundamentally Identical Relatedness Standard

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

Ninth Circuit Affirms Application of Goods & Products Exclusion

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

Seventh Circuit Eases ERISA Plaintiffs’ Pleading Burden Against Private Company Plan Fiduciaries

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

Allocation Clause Held Enforceable in a Duty To Defend D&O Policy

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

Eleventh Circuit Holds No Duty to Defend Directors Serving in Mixed Capacities

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

Supreme Court Expands Scope of Fiduciary Liability

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

Georgia Supreme Court: Insured Cannot Sue for Settlement Amount of Bad Faith Absent Insurer’s “Consent to Settle”

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

Disclaimer Requirement of N.Y. Insurance Law § 3420(d)(2) Held Not to Apply to Property Damage Claims

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

The Impact of Halliburton on Directors and Officers Insurance

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

Supreme Court Rejects Presumption of Prudence for ESOP Fiduciaries

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

The Second Circuit Confirms the SEC’s Ability to Settle Without Requiring Admissions of Wrongdoing

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

Chen v. Howard-Anderson: A Study in the Standards of Review and of D&O Conduct in the Merger Context

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

Washington Appellate Court Holds That Below-Limits Settlement Fails to Trigger Excess Policies

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

S.D.N.Y. Disqualifies Securities Class Action Plaintiffs’ Expert and Denies Class Certification

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

Goldman Ordered to Advance Defense Fees for Former Employee Accused of Stealing Computer Codes

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

Estée Lauder v. OneBeacon Insurance Group – Expanding the Scope of Discovery in Bad Faith Cases

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

Second Circuit Further Curtails Duty of Prudence Claims in Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers v. Morgan Stanley

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

Gabelli v. SEC: The Supreme Court Limits the Statute of Limitations for SEC Actions

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

The Material Impact of the Amgen Decision on D&O Insurance

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

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