On March 31, 2022, Lex Machina hosted a webcast on the recently released Securities Litigation Report 2022. The webcast featured guest speaker Rachel Fritzler (Partner in litigation at Kirkland & Ellis) and Laura Hopkins (Legal Data Expert at Lex Machina and report author), hosted by Joshua Harvey (Manager of the Customer Success Team at Lex Machina). They discussed the latest findings and trends in Securities litigation, including top law firm and party data, most active judges and districts, and case filings. They also discussed emerging trends in cryptocurrency cases and the evolving impact of COVID-19.
In discussing shareholder derivative suits, Rachel Fritzler notes, “So it’s interesting because I think the overall trend [in] 2021 was still, as you say, much higher than even 2018, 2017, 2016. I think derivative lawsuits, not always, but frequently follow securities litigation. I think there may be a little bit of a trailing time period that we’re seeing in the data here. In my experience, I think derivative suits are not going away. I will be very interested to see what this shows in 2022, because my expectation would be that it levels out or even goes up again. This is not going away anytime soon, and it is a continued source of pressure for companies.”
For more, listen to a recording of the webcast or read the transcript