Publications

Federal Jury Holds Vivendi Liable, Exonerates Former Officers

February 8, 2010
Securities Litigation, Regulation & Enforcement Developments - Winter 2010

Over 3,000 class actions have been commenced under the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws since the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PSLRA”). It is exceedingly rare, however, for these massive actions to actually proceed to trial, as most are either settled or dismissed. In fact, only 15 such class actions have actually proceeded to trial during the 14 years since the PSLRA’s enactment. Of those, only eight have been tried to a verdict (the other seven settled during trial).

The largest federal securities class action ever to proceed to a trial concluded on Jan. 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, resulting in a jury verdict completely exonerating Schulte Roth & Zabel’s client, one of the defendants in the case. The case took seven years to get to trial and involved numerous sophisticated accounting, financial reporting and securities law issues.