|  | | 2008 News and Press Releases | | |
SETTLEMENT NEWS:
About The Unitedhealth Group Class Action Settlement: Unitedhealth Group Announced On July 2, 2008 (Here) That It Reached An Agreement To Settle Its High Profile Options Backdating-Related Securities Class Action Lawsuit For $895 Million
Kevin LaCroix
The D & O Diary. July 3, 2008
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EXCERPT: A July 3, 2008 Law.com article discussing the settlement can be found here.
Not only is this settlement the largest options backdating related securities lawsuit settlement to date, it is one of the largest securities settlements ever. The settlement does at least provide some counterweight to the view that some have expressed (refer here) that the options backdating related lawsuits may be settling low compared to historical standards. This settlement, together with the $750 million Xerox settlement announced in March 2008 (including $80 million from the company’s auditor) and the flood of high profile, high stakes subprime-related litigation, may also undercut the view that has been expressed that overall settlements may begin to decline as the cases from the era of corporate scandals cycle out of the system. It is probably worth noting that, as reported in the July 3, 2008 Wall Street Journal (here), the UnitedHealth settlement has not yet been completely resolved, as the settlement does not include United ealth’s former CEO William McGuire, nor does it include its former General Counsel, David Lubben. Although it has not received nearly as much attention, it is also noteworthy that in its July 2 press release UnitedHealth also announced that it had also settled for $17 million the options backdating related ERISA lawsuit pending against the company and certain of its officials. As far as I am aware, this is the roughly half dozen options backdating related ERISA lawsuit to have settled. (To see a complete list of options backdating related ERISA lawsuits, refer here.) Derivative litigation related to the options backdating woes at UnitedHealth previously resulted in the largest reported derivative settlement, as I discussed in a prior post, here. |
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