Sox First

The financial meltdown is driving litigation.

New data released in the Securities Class Action Filings: 2008 Year End Assessment, from Cornerstone Research and the Stanford University Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse shows that of the companies included in the S&P 500 index, 9 percent were sued in a federal securities class action in 2008, compared to only 5 percent in 2007. And the subprime/liquidity crisis was associated with 97 federal securities class actions.

In 2008, 111 class actions were filed against firms listed on the NYSE/Amex compared to 68 against firms listed on NASDAQ.

With the way the market is travelling, we can expect this to continue for some time.

• Lawsuits increase with subprime
• Fall in securities fraud lawsuits
• Pace of US class-action filings falls: less fraud or strong market?
• Supremes screw investors
• Airlines face cartel class action
• US farmers hit AWB with racketeering claim
• Security lawsuits fall? Depends which number you look at
• AWB fallout
• Securities lawsuits on the rise