Desperately Seeking Standing

Last week, Labaton Sucharow & Rudoff LLP, lead counsel in the In re National Australia Bank Securities Litigation, issued this press release, noting that the Court had:

dismissed the Complaint, holding that the Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the claims of foreign purchasers of NAB securities purchased on non-U.S. exchanges.

The Court also ruled that the plaintiff who purchased NAB ADRs did not sustain damages and dismissed the claims of ADR purchasers.

According to the release:

This means that someone who purchased NAB ADRs between April 1, 1999 and September 3, 2001, inclusive, and lost money on the investment, may seek to be substituted as a plaintiff so that the action can continue.

And:

IF NO ADR PURCHASER STEPS FORWARD, NO RECOVERY BY WAY OF SETTLEMENT OF, OR JUDGMENT IN, THIS LITIGATION WILL OCCUR.

(emphasis in original)

The National Australia Bank Ltd. (NYSE: NAB) press release came just one day after this one in the Wells Fargo mutual funds litigation, discussed here last week.

Two similar press releases in one week are enough to create a trend, so without further ado, let's roll out our newest addition to the "Securities Litigation Universe of [Press] Release Permutations", or SLURP.

We'll call the newcomer to SLURP the "Personal Ad Press Release."

It describes a press release discussing securities litigation where some or all of a case has been dismissed on standing grounds, and plaintiff's counsel is attempting to find a substitute plaintiff that will cure the standing issue.

Daily Trivia: Labaton Sucharow partner Mark S. Arisohn was one of the attorneys that represented Vincent Chiarella before the Supreme Court in Chiarella v. United States, 445 U.S. 222 (1980), the seminal insider trading case.