Securities Class Action

The past decade has seen a significant increase in public awareness and governmental scrutiny of the financial practices of publicly held companies. At best, the threat of high-profile securities class actions and other litigation can have a chilling effect on business growth; at worst, administrative actions, lawsuits and criminal proceedings can result in the downfall of an entire company.

The securities class action team at McGuireWoods represents clients in jurisdictions across the United States. We advise publicly traded and closely held corporations, officers and directors of these businesses, and their outside advisors and service providers such as accounting firms, hedge funds and investment banking firms. We regularly represent clients before federal and state courts and the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation in matters involving multimillion-dollar claims. For example, we recently advised a petroleum corporation in a $100,000,000 securities class action alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and state fiduciary duty law; our motion to dismiss the federal case was granted, as were the state law claims.

We also explore alternative resolution options, including mediation, arbitration, early neutral evaluation, summary jury trials and settlement conferences when such strategies can help clients achieve their objectives, reduce costs and administrative burdens, and offer creative solutions not typically offered through the courts. McGuireWoods is a member of the Center for Public Resources, a non-profit alliance of corporations, law firms and academics dedicated to promoting efficient alternatives to litigation. Our practice also includes partners who teach alternative dispute resolution methods at law schools and who have authored textbooks on the subject.

Securities class actions and shareholder derivative suits often involve criminal and civil proceedings that run parallel to the core litigation. We work closely with the firm’s white-collar criminal defense team and related practices to defend clients in grand jury investigations and criminal matters pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice and arising out of SEC enforcement activity. As counselors, we draw on our knowledge of SEC and law-enforcement priorities to help clients structure new products, activities and sales practices to help ensure compliance with existing and emerging regulations.

We represent clients in the full range of shareholder derivative suits and securities class actions, including serving as counsel to director and officer defendants, accounting defendants and broker-dealer defendants.