June 17, 2008

The WSJ has details on the $75 million settlement of criminal charges, which involves admissions of wrongdoing. The New York Times even runs the story on its front page, just as if it were, you know, significant news or something. Maybe we succeeded in shaming them?

A few other points from Jonathan Glater's NYT coverage:

• Remember the murmurs, never very credible even at the time, about how the crackdown on abuse was supposedly meant to do away with the class-action biz altogether? Nothing of the sort, of course, has happened. Notwithstanding a general trend in the courts to hold plaintiffs to higher standards, the supply of securities fraud suits remains "robust", notes Joseph Grundfest.


• Thomas P. O'Brien, a U.S. attorney, calls the Milberg misconduct "probably the longest-running scheme ever conducted by a law firm".


• One "longtime New York shareholder lawyer", complaining that Milberg's misdeeds had "poisoned the well" with judges, "insisted on anonymity out of fear of retaliation by other lawyers; such is the powerful reputation of Milberg still."