News: Berman Tabacco In The News

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), represented by Berman DeValerio, has reached a $125 million agreement to settle its 2009 claim that rating agency Standard & Poor’s negligently misrepresented risky structured finance products as “Aaa” prior to the financial crisis.

San Francisco Managing Partner Nicole Lavallee took part in a discussion of the securities litigation landscape as part of a Securities Roundtable published recently in California Lawyer magazine.

Plaintiffs in a 2008 class action accusing Fannie Mae of violating federal securities laws have reached a $170 million preliminary settlement with Fannie Mae. Berman DeValerio is co-lead counsel in the case, representing the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) Board.

Decades of adverse court decisions have eaten away at investors’ rights, imposing what feels like “a death by a thousand cuts” on plaintiffs seeking to sue for securities fraud, Berman DeValerio Partner Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. told corporate governance advocates recently.

Berman DeValerio has negotiated a $340 million proposed settlement of class-action claims against six underwriters of IndyMac mortgage-backed securities who were accused of misleading investors in offering documents.

San Francisco Partner Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. recently appeared on the PBS blog MediaTwits in a video podcast to discuss Amazon.com’s dominance in e-book sales and how it affects authors, consumers and the entire publishing industry.

San Francisco Partner Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. was quoted recently by Bloomberg Businessweek in an article about whether Amazon.com’s actions to pressure publishers and movie studios to lower the prices they charge the online retailer constitute illegal anticompetitive behavior.

San Francisco Managing Partner Nicole Lavallee was quoted recently by the National Post of Toronto in an article about the potential impact an impending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could have on Canada’s legal landscape.

In our March issue, we reported that the Supreme Court had agreed to hear arguments in IndyMac MBS and discussed the significant additional burdens an adverse ruling would impose on institutional investors. This month, Berman DeValerio, on behalf of the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (“LACERA”), filed a brief arguing that the adverse lower court ruling should be reversed.

In an important step forward for plaintiffs, a Texas federal judge has ruled that investors who purchased BP stock in the United States after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico can pursue claims that they were defrauded when the energy company misled them about the scope of the resulting spill.

The California Court of Appeals heard oral argument recently in a significant lawsuit in which CalPERS is accusing credit rating agencies of negligence in rating structured investment vehicles that collapsed shortly after the pension fund had invested $1.3 billion.

Berman DeValerio raised the equivalent of 43,964 pounds of food for Massachusetts food banks in two weeks, topping competitors in the Legal Food Frenzy for the second year in a row, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced April 16th.

A national network dedicated to improving U.S. elections presented Berman DeValerio Special Counsel Kevin Shelley with an award for his work to protect “the integrity of the voting process” as California’s Secretary of State.

The Boston office of Berman DeValerio recently sponsored a volunteer excursion to the Greater Boston Food Bank, the largest hunger-relief organization in New England. Twenty-two lawyers and staff participated in the weekday effort, the second the firm has organized to benefit the charitable foundation.

A nonbinding resolution by California lawmakers urging the state’s companies to add women to their boards will not prompt any lawsuits over compliance, but may encourage companies to consider retaining more women directors, a Berman DeValerio partner told the Daily Journal newspaper.

More than 20 law firms from 16 countries, including Berman DeValerio, founded the International Financial Litigation Network this month, a group seeking to promote effective and consistent cross-border remedies for clients involved in global financial disputes.