Securities Litigation

Over 50 years ago, Milberg pioneered the litigation of claims involving investment products, securities, and the banking industry with the use of class action lawsuits. Our litigation has set the standard for case theories, organization, discovery, methods of settlement, and amounts recovered for clients.

Calling on its long history of successfully handling complex securities disputes against the world’s most powerful companies, Milberg continues to aggressively pursue these cases on behalf of institutional and individual investors harmed by financial wrongdoing. As the firm that invented securities class actions, Milberg has decades of experience investigating securities fraud claims and holding companies accountable in the United States and across the globe.

Milberg’s Securities Practice Group

In its early years, Milberg built a new area of legal practice by representing shareholder interests under the then recently-amended Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allowed securities fraud cases to proceed as class actions. Since then, Milberg has served as Lead Counsel or Co-Lead Counsel in state and federal securities lawsuits that have returned billions of dollars to investors and prompted meaningful changes in corporate governance.

Focus Areas of Practice

• Fraudulent statements on corporate public filings
• Misappropriation of corporate funds
• Business metric manipulation
• Breaches of fiduciary duty
• Regulatory violations

Notable Cases & Recent Recoveries

• $3.2 Billion Settlement – In re Tyco International, Ltd. Securities Litigation – Milberg served as Co-Lead Counsel in this securities litigation against Tyco and its former CEO, CFO, general counsel, and certain former directors alleging insider trading and the overstatement of billions of dollars in income – the case settled in 2007 and earned praise from the court, which lauded Milberg’s efforts, saying that, “But for Co-Lead Counsel’s enormous expenditure of time, money, and effort, they would not have been able to negotiate an end result so favorable for the class”
• $1.14 Billion Settlement – In re Nortel Networks Corp. Securities Litigation – Milberg served as Lead Counsel, representing the class and the lead plaintiff, in this securities class action settlement valued at more than $1.14 billion
• $1 Billion-plus Settlement, the largest-ever securities class action settlement against a pharmaceutical company – In re Merck & Co., Inc. Securities Litigation – Milberg served as Co-Lead Counsel in this case and obtained a settlement totaling more than $1.062 billion – The court called the settlement “fair and just” and “the best settlement which possibly could have been achieved in this case”
• $1 Billion-plus Trial Verdict – Vivendi Universal, S.A. Securities Litigation – Serving as one of two Lead Trial Counsel, Milberg recovered damages in this securities fraud case involving highly contested issues of loss and transaction causation and damage methodologies, and established workable standards for plaintiffs’ successful presentation of those issues in pre-trial and trial proceedings
• $775 Million Settlement – Washington Public Power Supply System Securities Litigation – Milberg served as Co-Lead Counsel in this highly complex and lengthy class action lawsuit, which stemmed from the failure of two Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) nuclear project and resulted in settlements worth more than $775 million, the largest-ever securities fraud settlement at the time

Our outstanding securities recoveries also include:

• $750 Million Settlement – Carlson v. Xerox Corp.
• $586 Million Settlement – In re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation
• $517 Million Settlement – In re Lucent Technologies, Inc. Securities Litigation
• $460 Million Settlement – In re Raytheon Co. Securities Litigation
• $330 Million Settlement – In re Rite Aid Corp. Securities Litigation
• $200 Million Settlement – In re CMS Energy Corp. Securities Litigation
• $138 Million Settlement – In re Biovail Corp. Securities Litigation
• $120 Million Settlement – In re Deutsche Telekom AG Securities Litigation
• $110 Million Settlement – In re CVS Corp. Securities Litigation
• $100 Million Settlement – In re Am. Express Fin. Advisors Securities Litigation

Milberg: A National Leader in Securities Litigation

Prosecuting complex securities cases requires investing millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours. Very few firms have the capacity to handle these cases, because very few firms have Milberg’s breadth of resources and depth of knowledge. With a proud history and a solid foundation for the future, Milberg is poised to build on our legacy as one of the country’s most successful class action securities firms.