|  | | 2013 News and Press Releases | | |
SETTLEMENT NEWS:
Institutional Investors Recover $688 Million From Merck and Schering-Plough in Securities Fraud Litigation
Alexander Coxe
Marketwire. February 14, 2013
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EXCERPT: The Court-appointed Lead Plaintiffs in the coordinated securities class actions pending against Merck & Co. Inc. ("Merck"), Schering-Plough Corporation ("Schering"), Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals, certain of the Companies' directors and officers, and the underwriters of a 2007 Schering stock offering today announced that they have reached settlements on behalf of investors totaling $688 million subject to Court approval. The actions relate to a clinical trial called "ENHANCE" involving the anti-cholesterol drugs Zetia and Vytorin. The actions, currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey before Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh, are In re Schering-Plough Corporation/ENHANCE Securities Litigation, Master File No. 08-397, which settled for $473 million; and In re Merck & Co., Inc. Vytorin/Zetia Securities Litigation, Master File No. 08-2177, which settled for $215 million. The combined $688 million in settlements is the second largest securities class action settlement in the Third Circuit, among the top 25 securities class action settlements of all time, and among the ten largest recoveries in a securities class action not involving a restatement. The settlements were reached after almost five years of protracted litigation led by Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP ("BLB&G") and co-counsel, and only after the District Court granted Plaintiffs' motions for class certification and denied Defendants' motions for summary judgment and the Third Circuit denied Defendants' Rule 23(f) appeals of the District Court's decisions granting class certification. Trial was scheduled to begin on March 4, 2013. BLB&G is Court-appointed Co-Lead Counsel representing Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi, and Louisiana Municipal Police Employees' Retirement System on behalf of the Class in the Schering-Plough action, and Co-Lead Counsel representing Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund and General Retirement System of the City of Detroit on behalf of the Class in the Merck case. |
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