Photo of Daniel Brown

On May 27, 2010, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a district court’s decision certifying class actions against the Republic of Argentina and granting over $2 billion in damages to eight classes of plaintiffs.  Puricelli v. The Republic of Argentina, No. 09-0332, 2010 WL 2105132 (2nd Cir. May 27, 2010)(“Puricelli“). While the Court of Appeals concluded that class certification was appropriate, it held that the district court erred in entering aggregate class-wide relief, as opposed to determining individual relief.
Continue Reading Second Circuit Rejects $2 Billion Class Action Award Against The Republic of Argentina

On April 27, 2010, in a closely watched antitrust case with the potential for broad impacts on class action arbitrations, the United States Supreme Court considered the issue “whether imposing class arbitration on parties whose arbitration clauses are ‘silent’ on that issue is consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.” Slip op. at 1. See Stolt-Nielsen S.A. et al. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., 559 U.S. —, No. 08-1198 (April 27, 2010) (“Stolt-Nielson”).
Continue Reading The United States Supreme Court Rules That Class Arbitration Is Improper When Parties To An Arbitration Agreement Have Not Explicitly Authorized Class Arbitration

On September 8, 2009, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the approval of two multimillion-dollar class action settlements in consolidated multi district cases arising from investigations and civil lawsuits alleging bid rigging and steering activities in the insurance industry. See In re Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Litigation, Nos. 07-1759 et al. (3d Cir. Sept. 8, 2009).  Specifically, after rejecting objections to the settlements, the court approved two settlements valued at $150 million, and also approved an award of $29.9 million in legal fees and costs for the larger of the settlements.
Continue Reading Multimillion Dollar Class Action Settlements Approved In Insurance Brokerage Litigations