The Delaware Court of Chancery approved a $110 million deal to end a shareholder suit that alleged breaches of fiduciary duty in connection with Liberty Broadband Corp.’s acquisition of GCI Liberty Inc.

The most recent wave of mutual fund fee litigation is now over and investors should not be happy with the result. The wave consisted of 25 or so cases alleging that the fees charged by mutual fund advisers were excessive. While a handful settled, most were dismissed at various procedural stages by federal judges who couldn’t find an excessive fee in the entire lot.

Morris Kandinov announced today that it has partnered with Chicago Clearing Corporation (“CCC”) to provide clients with industry-leading portfolio monitoring and class action claims processing services.  The firm will begin transitioning eligible retail, adviser and institutional clients to CCC’s platform, which provides a single source for tracking hundreds of securities, antitrust, and foreign cases filed each year. 

Aaron Morris was quoted in an article regarding excessive fee cases published in the August 10, 2021 edition of Board IQ.

Concerning trends for asset managers continued apace in 2020, as did efforts in courtrooms, legislatures and boardrooms to protect the industry’s underbelly.

In a recent Delaware Court of Chancery decision, stockholders of Gilead Sciences, Inc. successfully obtained attorneys’ fees after prevailing in a books and records action against the company. 

The media, SEC and public have increased their focus recently on trading by company executives through so-called Rule 10b5-1 plans, which continues to be a problem for public companies, despite a downtick in insider trading cases filed by the SEC last year.  The interest has been generated, in part, by an academic paper, which spurred the SEC and Congress to reconsider the rules around trading plans.

An academic paper published in June 2021 highlights the important role of private stockholder litigation and plaintiff lawyers in protecting the rights of shareholders and regulating the financial markets.

Morris Kandinov LLP was part of a team of lawyers that secured a favorable settlement for GCI Liberty Inc. stockholders in connection with its merger with Liberty Broadband Corp.

A Massachusetts Superior Court decision in March 2021 reaffirms the significant contractual, state law, and federal law protections over fund shareholder voting rights.