Here is the weekly summary for Securities Docket’s Web Watch (”This Week’s Best Blog Posts and Columns”):
FCPA … the “Law Version” of Baseball (FCPA Professor)
FCPA Professor | October 16, 2009
The FCPA is quickly becoming the “law version” of baseball when it comes to statistics. Every few weeks it seems (see here for a prior post) FCPA aficionados have new statistics to digest. The latest FCPA statistics come courtesy of Fulbright & Jaworski’s 6th Annual Litigation Trends Survey (see here for download).
In Bank of America Mess, What About Wachtell?(DealBook Blog)
DealBook | October 16, 2009
Bank of America’s decision to waive its attorney-client privilege and release information about the legal advice it received in connection with the Merrill Lynch acquisition significantly increases the possibility that its outside lawyers, Wachtell and Shearman & Sterling, will be the focus of claims about potential securities law violations.
Truth, lies and the regulators (Dealscape)
The Deal | October 14, 2009
What do regulators do? Trying to clamp down on opinions, bluffs, half-truths, rumors, unverifiable scuttlebutt is hopeless; it’s too indefinable and too ubiquitous.
ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR SEC ENFORCEMENT (SEC ACTIONS)
SEC Actions | October 13, 2009
A key question remains: Why the New York AG is able to secure an agreement to obtain the critical information when the SEC could not? The SEC has all the tools to obtain evidence necessary to its investigations. The Commission can not of course obtain privileged material. In rejecting the settlement in the SEC’s case however the court virtually dismissed out of hand the Commission’s suggestions that privilege blocked its investigation. Now Mr. Cuomo has obtained by agreement what the SEC claims it could not obtain.
Vivendi Securities Trial: A Closer Look at the Opening Statements (The D & O Diary)
The D&O Diary | October 13, 2009
The transcript of the opening arguments in the case are available here. The opening statements make for some interesting reading in and of themselves, and there are already a number of critical observations that may be made about this case.
Pay-to-Play Still “Newsworthy” (Securities Litigation Watch)
Securities Litigation Watch | October 13, 2009
While the numbers don’t lie, they certainly mislead. First, the fees were generated, in large part, as a result of those firms having represented the pension fund in 3 of the 10 largest securities class action settlements of all time, with a collective value just for those three settlements of more than $10.5 billion. Second, the article does not discuss whether the fee awards mentioned were exclusively for lead counsel, or represented the total award for all law firms.
IS IT TIME TO SETTLE SEC v. BANK OF AMERICA? (SEC ACTIONS)
SEC ACTIONS | October 13, 2009
Beyond the standard injunction, which of course it the starting point, perhaps the SEC should demand that the proxy process at the bank is reformed. Perhaps the SEC should consider requiring that the bank implement its prior Section 21(a) report on this point and take steps to ensure that shareholders are told all the salient facts in the future by the bank.
