|  | | 2006 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Attorneys Question Portfolio-Monitoring Services; Claim It's A Red Herring For More Lawsuits
Sara Hansard
Investment News. December 4, 2006
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EXCERPT: The portfolio-monitoring services being offered by plaintiff's firms keep track of portfolios and trading information for institutional investors, including pensions, mutual funds and investment advisers. If any securities litigation has been filed concerning any of the companies held in the portfolios being monitored, or if any potential litigation could be filed, the plaintiff's firms alert the institutional investors. The services advertised on websites are being offered typically free of charge to institutional investors. Critics worry that plaintiff's law firms will use their portfolio- monitoring services to find such problems as questionable trades and generate their own lawsuits. Andrew Pincus, a partner in the Washington office of Chicago law firm Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw LLP, characterizes the prominence of portfolio-monitoring services by plaintiff's law firms as a ``remarkable development'' in securities litigation. Mr. Pincus, who spoke Oct. 26 at the seventh annual Legal Reform Summit, sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here, said: ``The courting of the pension funds has proceeded where if you look at the websites of the well-known plaintiff's firms, they're offering investment-monitoring programs.'' Lead counsel In addition to fueling securities litigation, portfolio monitoring could be used by plaintiff's firms in their bids to be appointed lead counsel, a desirable position in class actions which often results in high fees. But plaintiff's lawyers who offer the portfolio-monitoring services insist that their motive is pure. ``The reason we offer the service is that our clients - who are fiduciaries for the investments they make and for the beneficiaries of the pension fund - want to know if they've lost money on investments due to securities fraud,'' said Douglas McKeige, of counsel to Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP in New York. ``It's that simple.'' |
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