Securities Fraud

One of HBD’s best-established specialties is our work prosecuting and defending securities fraud actions.  Over the past several years, HBD has pursued non-class securities actions on behalf of some of the world’s leading hedge funds and institutional investors in connection with the bankruptcies of Enron and Parmalat.  In the Enron actions, HBD obtained substantial settlements for its clients AIG, Aegon, PIMCO, Principal and Oaktree Capital.  The Parmalat actions are ongoing.  In these cutting-edge actions, HBD has demonstrated the value to institutional investors in pursuing actions separate from related class actions, as well as claims in bankruptcy, to maximize recoveries.  In addition, HBD is one of the few firms to have successfully tried to a jury verdict a claim for securities fraud based on an investment fund’s secondary-market purchases of securities after an issuer had begun to announce poor financial results.  Beyond these cases, HBD has handled the prosecution and defense of a wide variety of securities fraud actions.  Indeed, HBD’s very first cases involved the prosecution of the securities fraud claims of Orange County, California, following its 1994 bankruptcy.  Through those claims and related actions, HBD recovered more than $870 million for the County.