Today, the jury in the Vivendi securities class action trial (SDNY) found the company liable on all 57 claims alleged against it, concluding that the company acted recklessly and inflated its shares. Bloomberg reports that individual Vivendi defendants including former CEO Jean-Marie Messier were not found to have been liable, however.
The jury was not asked to provide a damages figure. The amount of damages will be calculated after shareholders submit claims, Bloomberg reports. A lawyer for the Vivendi investors, however, estimated damages today at $4 billion. The figure depends on how many members of the class filer claims–typically, less than 35 percent of shareholders submit claims in class action settlements.
Cases like this one could be a regular occurrence under Proposed Bill H.R. 3817. Under this Bill foreign companies could be sued more easily in U.S. courts.
The Investor Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 3817), which was approved by the House financial services committee late last year, contains a provision to make it easier for investors to sue public companies in the U.S. even if they are based abroad and listed on overseas exchanges.
Section 215 of the proposed Act would in effect legislatively mandate a jurisdictional standard for extraterritoriality.
This was the subject of an article in the International Business Law Advisor: What Do Halley’s Comet and “F-Cubed” Securities Class Action Trials Have in Common? http://bit.ly/bWnohL