Practice Areas: Securities Litigation

The pressures and challenges confronted by public companies, especially in these times of heightened public awareness and increased regulatory scrutiny, require the counsel of experienced securities litigation attorneys. Your counsel should possess the qualifications, experience and geographic coverage to best represent your interests.

McGuireWoods is a recognized leader in the defense of securities class actions, derivative litigation and investigations by state and federal regulators. Our securities lawyers bring broad experience to your representation. Our partners include nationally recognized securities defense counsel, ranked by Chambers USA, The Legal 500 and Law360: Securities. In addition, a number of our attorneys have worked as senior officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission, FINRA, the Department of Justice and the PCAOB. For more information on regulatory investigations, visit our Government Regulatory and Criminal Investigations practice.

Representative Matters

• Representation of a multinational industrial company in more than 40 purported securities class actions in the aftermath of a high-level corporate scandal. The multidistrict litigation involved collection and production of more than 80 million pages of documents and 250 fact and expert depositions.
• Representation of a Fortune 20 financial institution in a series of lawsuits arising out of the collapse of an Italian food and dairy conglomerate. The claimed losses against the bank exceeded $14 billion. The cases involved worldwide discovery and coordinated efforts with other U.S. and European counsel for the client, which faced other related civil and criminal proceedings in several countries. Our representation of the client spanned nearly six years, from the filing of the earliest suits and their consolidation into MDL proceedings, through all phases of discovery and dispositive motions practice, and the ultimate resolution of the U.S. litigation.
• Representation of an international financial institution in the Enron shareholders’ class action. Plaintiffs sought in excess of $40 billion in damages. Our work included more than 300 depositions and a review of 1.25 million documents produced.
• Representation of a Big Four accounting firm in multiple civil and regulatory matters, including in connection with the Enron and WorldCom scandals and the Fannie Mae restatement.
• Representation of a Fortune 20 financial institution in consolidated securities fraud litigation in Oklahoma state court arising from the bankruptcy of the nation’s largest servicer of defaulted credit card receivables. The lawsuit involved allegations of fraud in connection with a $189 million conduit transaction. Total claims in the consolidated litigation exceeded $1.2 billion.
• Representation of a computer networking company in four consolidated 10b-5 securities class actions in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, arising out of alleged restatement of financial statements, misstatements and omissions in financial statements, press releases and public filings.
• Representation of a major shareholder and former director of a public company in a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging violations of the federal securities laws and common law fraud. The complaint was initially dismissed for failure to plead fraud with particularity. The complaint was refiled and a class action settlement was eventually negotiated.
• Represented a public company and its president and director in four class actions and an individual action alleging violations of the federal securities laws and RICO, which were consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
• Represented an international provider of telecommunication devices in a securities class action arising out of the restatement of financial statements.
• Representation of a Big Four accounting firm in securities claims and a direct shareholder action brought by a bank’s shareholders against multiple defendants to recover losses in the bank’s stock in the time leading to the merger of two banking entities. The court dismissed the shareholder action because it could be brought only as a derivative claim.