{"id":61,"date":"2007-04-11T01:51:01","date_gmt":"2007-04-11T00:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/wolverhampton-v-dell-case-update-ii\/"},"modified":"2007-04-11T08:07:22","modified_gmt":"2007-04-11T07:07:22","slug":"wolverhampton-v-dell-case-update-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/wolverhampton-v-dell-case-update-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolverhampton v Dell, case update ii"},"content":{"rendered":"

(See previous posts, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) Wolverhampton didn’t get it, but it is another foreigner who was appointed to be sole lead plaintiff in the Dell Inc. securities action, namely Union Asset Management Holding AG<\/a> of Germany, represented by Lead Counsel Motley Rice LLC<\/a> (on its own and notably not with Sturman LLC). Liaison Counsel is Byrd Davis Furman LLP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of particular interest here is that part of the opinion and order<\/a> (with thanks to Adam Savett of Securities Litigation Watch<\/a>), in which the Court, after presuming and rebutting ABP<\/a> being the most adequate plaintiff, presumes Union to be the most adequate (from p.13). (Union claims the next largest financial interest in the case, satisfies the typicality and adequacy requirements of FRCP 23 and had timely filed its motion to be appointed Lead Plaintiff.)<\/p>\n

Referring to In re NPS Pharms Inc. Sec. Lit.<\/em> and In re Molson Coors Brewing Co Sec. Lit.<\/em>, the Court states that “[t]here is neither a bar nor a presumption against appointing foreign entities to serve as lead plaintiff, particularly where, as here, the defendant is a U.S. company and the foreign entities bought their shares in the United States”, in effect dismissing the res judicata<\/em> concerns raised by other movants in relation to the appointment of a foreign entity as lead plaintiff.<\/p>\n

Perhaps as telling, the Court does not<\/em> refer to In re Discovery Labs Sec. Lit.<\/em> which was cited in a competing motion (as follows) as having established ‘a rule against appointing foreign investors as lead plaintiff’:<\/p>\n

[I]n Discovery Labs<\/em>, the court rejected another foreign asset manager represented by the same counsel for Union Asset management here \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Motley Rice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c reasoning that as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a foreign investor, OPAM \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcis subject to unique defenses that render [it] incapable of adequately representing the class.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addition, it does quote from Newman v Eagle Bldg Techs<\/em> in relation to the relevance of a lead plaintiff’s location: “In light of today’s travel and communication methods, the geographical location of the [foreign lead plaintiff movants] is irrelevant.” (Original edit)<\/p>\n

The Court, beyond nationality or geography, confirms its assessment of Union’s adequacy to represent the class thus:<\/p>\n

It seems clear from the affidavit of Union’s in-house counsel that Union is firmly in the drivers’ seat with regard to this litigation. Appointing this institutional investor as Lead Plaintiff and approving its choice of Lead Counsel will serve the PSLRA’s goal of encouraging shareholders to protect their interests via securities class actions while discouraging “lawyer-driven” litigation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s more:<\/strong> Union is another example for Adam Savett (see here<\/a> at SLW and Kevin LaCroix at The D & O Diary<\/a>) to add to his list of private institutional investor lead plaintiffs. Union itself is a fund manager and member of a cooperative of financial institutions, consisting almost entirely of banks (see here<\/a>, in German<\/em>) and two of its main shareholders are banks, namely DZ Bank AG<\/a> and WGZ Bank AG<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(See previous posts, here and here.) Wolverhampton didn’t get it, but it is another foreigner who was appointed to be sole lead plaintiff in the Dell Inc. securities action, namely Union Asset Management Holding AG of Germany, represented by Lead Counsel Motley Rice LLC (on its own and notably not with Sturman LLC). Liaison Counsel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}