Securities Litigation

Value Added, Client-Focused Results

Clients with securities litigation issues turn to Schnader for value-added, client-focused results. We find cost-effective business solutions to meet a wide range of client needs. Our long, rich tradition of excellence in securities litigation is nationally recognized.

Our Clients

Securities Issuers, their directors and officers. National and global clients rely on Schnader when facing securities litigation or when seeking strategic advice on securities claim issues. They come from a vast number of industries, including:

• Finance
• Retail
• Banking
• Insurance
• Chemical
• Mortgage lending
• Healthcare
• Gaming
• Media
• Technology
• Software development

Other Market Participants. We represent virtually every type of market participant, including:

• Underwriters
• Investment banks
• Accountants
• Attorney
• Hedge funds
• Private placement partners and organizers

Broker-dealers, registered representatives and registered investment advisors. Our clients encompass a broad spectrum including:

• Major global and national wirehouses
• Regional broker-dealers with numerous branches and offices of supervisory jurisdiction
• Registered investment advisors, both corporate and individual
• Registered representatives

Our Client Matter Types

• Class actions and individual claims
  • Seasoned. We have decades of experience successfully defending major class-action and individual claims alleging securities fraud and other violations of securities laws and regulations
    Trials. We are among the select group with trial experience in securities claims, which gives us a unique perspective on providing a defense and structuring strategies. We have successfully crafted novel and creative arguments that set trends, rather than follow them.
  • Insurance. We have extensive, long experience with D&O insurance carriers, which are key players in the securities claims.
• Shareholder derivative demands, claims and lawsuits
  • Track Record. We have an exemplary track record for publicly-traded and closely-held clients on claims involving breach of fiduciary duty, business judgment and other corporate misconduct.
  • Extraordinary Relief. Our deep experience and interdisciplinary approach are key to clients seeking or confronting the extraordinary relief available in shareholder derivative lawsuits, such as injunctions, asset freezes, security bonds, disgorgement of profits, or appointment of receivers or other fiduciaries.
• Independent internal investigations.
  • Guidance. Well before Sarbanes-Oxley and ENRON, clients looked to us for guidance and counseling in internal investigations by entities, management, boards or board committees.
  • Policies & Controls. As part of our corporate governance counseling, we advise, draft and train on enhancements to corporate policies and on developing affective internal controls, using our interdisciplinary approach when needed.
• Investigations by government law enforcement regulators.
  • Global Experience. We advise global and national clients on potential charges under securities and corporate laws, and their corresponding regulations
  • Exit Strategies. We have succeeded in convincing regulators to drop investigations of clients and to reduce or eliminate potential draconian sanctions.
  • All Major Regulators. We deal extensively with FINRA (formerly, NASD, NYSE and AMEX), the SEC, state attorneys general, and state securities regulators.
• Court and administrative proceedings by governmental law enforcement. 
  • Defending Against Regulators. Clients and other referring counsel seek us when government investigations take an adversarial turn and become securities enforcement lawsuits and administrative proceedings, charging violations under securities laws and regulations
  • Trial Victories. We try and win cases brought by government regulators. We successfully argue appeals.
  • Remedy Focus. We give particular focus to defeating, ameliorating or reducing the potential remedies available to regulators under securities laws and regulations, such as fines, penalties, disgorgements, asset freezes or bars from an industry or from serving on boards.
• Crisis management counseling.
  • Damage Control. We assist publicly traded and privately held entities, their management teams, independent directors, and board committees, with crisis management.
  • Global Strategies. Our interdisciplinary approach is vital to developing creative strategies designed to address clients’ various corporate constituencies and stake holders, including shareholders, employees, regulators, communities and the media.
• Broker-dealer and registered investment advisor customer disputes.
  • Claim Resolution. Clients engage us to negotiate away customer claims before court filings and to defend proceedings after customer claims are formally filed.
  • Depth. We have handled hundreds of arbitrations and court cases involving customer disputes, and defended government enforcement matters and actions regarding customer claims.
• Proxy fights and contests for corporate control.
  • Bet-the-Company. Clients facing the legal, procedural and economic complexities of proxy fights and contests for corporate control turn to us in “bet-the-company” matters.
• M&A and other corporate transactional disputes.
  • Interdisciplinary Advantage. Our interdisciplinary approach gives clients a unique advantage when facing disputes rising from mergers and acquisitions and other corporate transactions.
• ERISA and trust disputes and lawsuits.
  • Interdisciplinary Guidance. We guide clients in confronting tax and fiduciary issues with the aid of our tax and business planning group.
• Criminal grand jury, prosecution, trials, sentencing and appeals.
  • Vision. We defend securities claims with a constant eye toward the criminal implications
  • Interdisciplinary approach. Our approach gives clients a unique advantage when securities matters take a turn for the worse and involve criminal issues.
  • Global Strategy. Our former federal and state prosecutors add tremendous value to structuring a global business strategy.

Schnader’s Difference

Our Scope

• Comprehensive. Clients and referring counsel look to us for help under virtually all aspects of the federal securities laws and regulations, and those of many corresponding states.

Our Business Focus

• Client Concerns. We blend our clients’ unique business concerns with our special knowledge in the nuances of securities laws and regulations and our unique courtroom and litigation experience.
• Strategy. This results in a client-based strategy that may involve winning on motions raising technical legal and factual issues, structuring settlements or even convincing plaintiffs to withdraw their claims.

Our Experience

• Seasoned. Our long, rich tradition of excellence in securities litigation is recognized nationally. We have decades of experience in these sophisticated matters.
• National. We appear nationally in both federal and state courts, and in arbitrations throughout the country.
• Unique. We can call on former judges, prosecutors and securities law enforcers for special insights to clients’ securities litigation needs.

Our Results

• Trial Victories. We try and win securities cases.
• Business Solutions. Equally important, we address clients’ securities problems by seeking creative, cost-effective business solutions from the time we are initially engaged.

Our Interdisciplinary Approach

• Value Added. Clients receive Schnader’s value added dimension in securities litigation.
• Special Concentration. To help achieve the best client-driven results, we often call on our corporate, transactional and criminal lawyers.
• Strategic Business Context. The unique experience of such related service lawyers helps considerably to fashion a securities litigation strategy that considers the criminal ramifications and creates a business context seeking a business solution.