The End Of The Mega Securities Case Website?

In recent years, securities litigation groupies have been able to follow developments in some of the major cases via websites set up by lead counsel. With the WorldCom litigation all but finalized and the Enron litigation substantially settled, it's time to find some new websites to satisfy the securities litigation hunger.

Here is a roundup of the case-specific websites:

WorldCom

The website created by Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP and Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, co lead counsel in the In re WorldCom Inc., Securities Litigation, is perhaps the most inclusive securities class action case specific website ever created. The site contains copies of virtually every pleading filed by the lead plaintiff, New York State Common Retirement Fund, as well as copies of the vast majority of Judge Cote's opinions.

Enron

There are two Enron case-specific websites worth mentioning. The first, available here is updated by lead counsel, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP. The second, available here, is updated by the lead plaintiff, The Regents of the University of California. With a trial date looming in the Fall, my guess is that the settlements will keep piling in, and these sites will stay relatively static.

IPO

The website in the Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation has copies of many of the major briefs filed in the case, as well as copies of the amended complaints filed in each of the several hundred consolidated and coordinated cases.

Mutual Funds

The massive morass of cases that grew out of the late-trading and market-timing mutual fund scandals in 2004 does not appear to have a combined website maintained by any of the attorneys involved in the litigation. The Court has a website with opinions and certain other information here.

Merrill Lynch Analyst (Blodget)

Again, there does not appear to be a combined website maintained by any of the attorneys involved in the litigation. The Court has a website here with opinions and certain other information, though it is rather out of date. Note that these cases have been preliminarily settled, see Merrill Lynch's 8-K here.

Refco

Co-lead counsel, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP and Grant & Eisenhofer, P.A., maintain a website here, relating to the precipitous corporate meltdown of Refco, which before its implosion, was one of the world's largest providers of brokerage and clearing services in the international derivatives, currency and futures markets.

Odds and Ends

The other remaining mega-cases that easily spring to mind, Fannie Mae and Parmalat, do not appear to have their own websites, yet.

While the unfolding options-backdating scandal does not have a website yet, it probably soon will. According to a press release issued earlier this week:

Kahn Gauthier Swick, LLC ("KGS") announces the creation of the nation's first privately funded independent Options Pricing Investigations Division, focused on the investigation into the illegal backdating of options grants by US corporations. A growing number of companies are now being investigated by KGS' Options Pricing Investigations Division for improperly manipulating the prices of executive option grants.

Thanks to D&O Diary for pointing us to the release.

There are of course two other excellent sources of securities litigation related filings, Stanford Law School's Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, and an alternative site maintained by Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP here. These clearinghouses were created by local rules in the Northern District of California, available here, which require the posting to a "Designated Internet Site" of virtually all pleadings filed in securities class action cases in that district.

If any readers are aware of case-specific websites (as opposed to case-specific pages that are part of a law firm's general website) that I have missed, please send them along and I'll update the list.