The 10b-5 Daily

The New York Times and San Jose Mercury News have opinion columns today questioning the propriety of the Oracle derivative settlement announced earlier this week. The CEO of Oracle agreed to pay $100 million to charity on behalf of Oracle, with an additional payment of $22.5 million in legal fees to plaintiffs’ counsel.

Quote of note (Times): “John C. Coffee Jr., a professor of securities law at Columbia University, is not persuaded justice was served. He suggested that it ‘would be fairer if the plaintiffs’ attorneys would take their fee in the form of a charitable contribution that Mr. Ellison would make in their name to charities of his choice.’ Perhaps, he mused, Mr. Ellison would choose a charity that promotes tort reform.”

Quote of note II (Mercury News): “There’s certainly a long history of Silicon Valley tycoons giving less than full respect to the rights of shareholders. Whether this justifies such an unusual settlement is debatable. Either way, it’s going to be a tough call for Judge Schwartz.”

The derivative litigation surrounding alleged insider trading by Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, has taken a surprising turn. (The 10b-5 Daily has previously discussed the contradictory judicial decisions over this trading in a post entitled “Is A Billion Dollars In Stock Sales Significant?”) The New York Times reports that Mr. Ellison will pay $100 million to charity to resolve one of the two derivative cases pending in California state court. The attorneys for the derivative plaintiff will receive a separate payment of $22.5 million.

Quote of note: “‘I’ve never heard of anything, structured from the beginning as a settlement this large, going to a charity,’ said Michael A. Perino, a law professor at St. John’s University School of Law. Typically, Mr. Perino said, a derivative action results in a payment to the company.”

As previously discussed in The 10b-5 Daily, the state of Ohio has pursued a strategy of supplementing pending securities class actions with its own individual suits. That strategy appears to have paid off, at least in the WorldCom case. Columbus Business First reports that Ohio, on behalf of its pension funds, has agreed to a $94 million settlement with individuals and banks it alleged participated in the WorldCom securities fraud.

Quote of note: “The litigation was initiated by former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, who split with several states involved in a federal class-action lawsuit against WorldCom and its executives in September 2002. At the time, Montgomery said she made the move because Ohio was unable to gain lead plaintiff status in the federal case.”

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal had a front-page story (subscrip. req’d) on the increase in foreign investors acting as lead plaintiffs in U.S. securities class actions. (A related trend is the rise in suits filed against foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges.)

Quote of note: “The tort bar’s newfound interest in overseas clients — in particular, those involved in securities litigation — is driven by a broader phenomenon: the globalization of business and investing. In U.S. securities cases, judges are required to tap shareholders with the largest losses as the lead plaintiffs. Increasingly, these shareholders are based overseas, from pension funds to hedge funds and private-equity players.”

Quote of note II: “One [foreign investor bringing a suit in the U.S.] is retired tire-company executive Markus Blechner. Last year, when DaimlerChrysler AG paid $300 million to settle allegations it mislead U.S. investors, the Swiss national received nothing because he had purchased his shares in the auto maker on a Swiss exchange. . . . ‘I thought, ‘That’s not fair. Don’t I deserve to get paid, too?’ recalls Mr. Blechner. He and two Austrian investment funds are now suing the auto maker in U.S. federal court in Delaware. ‘Why not? It doesn’t cost me anything,’ Mr. Blechner says.”

As noted in The 10b-5 Daily late last year, the Canadian province of Ontario is set to implement new securities class action legislation. The most significant change is the creation of a broader private right of action for shareholders who purchased their shares in the secondary market. The Toronto Globe and Mail had an article in yesterday’s edition discussing the legislation and the need for Canadian companies to implement new disclosure policies in response to the increased litigation risk.

Quote of note: “Until now, investors who bought shares on the secondary market were able to sue only by alleging outright fraud as opposed to mere negligence. They also had to prove they relied on the misrepresentation when they bought or sold shares, an argument challenging to prove in court. By contrast, the new legislation makes no such stipulation, automatically assuming the plaintiff relied on the information. It is mainly for these reasons that a coalition of companies, including Alcan Inc., had opposed the bill, which was in the works for years. Those objectors pointed to the United States where, by contrast, plaintiffs must demonstrate that a defendant knowingly made a misleading or false statement.”