|  | | 2005 News and Press Releases | | |
SETTLEMENT NEWS:
Mutual Funds Agree To Pay $41.5 Million In Class Actions
Dan Lynch – Daily Business Review
Law.com. April 21, 2005
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EXCERPT: Two mutual fund companies operated by Morgan Stanley and one of its subsidiaries have agreed to pay $41.5 million to settle two class action suits alleging that the funds defrauded investors by overvaluing assets. The Boca Raton, Fla., office of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, along with Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow in New York, represented the plaintiff classes in the two cases. Van Kampen Prime Rate Income Trust, a subsidiary of New York City-based Morgan Stanley, agreed to the larger of the two settlements, for $31.5 million. That came in a class action suit filed by investors in 2001 in U.S. District Court in Chicago, involving the Van Kampen Senior Loan Fund. The other settlement, for $10 million, was reached by Morgan Stanley in December 2004, in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. It involved the Morgan Stanley Senior Loan Fund. Morgan Stanley has denied it defrauded investors and did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlements. Each settlement sum represents the difference between what investors paid for their shares and what they would have paid if the shares had been fairly priced, said Paul Geller, a partner at Lerach Coughlin. |
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