Australia

During October 2013–November 2015, Anglo-Australian mining company BHP Billiton (“BHP”) made a series of intentionally false representations touting its mining safety practices and risk management, and failed to make appropriate disclosures to investors about significant and immediate safety risks at its Brazilian operations. In November 2015, the Fundão dam at the Germano iron ore mine in Brazil (co-owned by BHP) collapsed, causing a toxic mudslide that swept away the village of Bento Rodrigues, killing 19 people and causing permanent environmental damage. On this news, BHP’s stock price dropped, and it continued to fall as news about the ever-worsening financial consequences of the collapse kept coming out until, by late November 2015, the stock had fallen 20%. In July 2019, the Full Appellate Court approved class certification and appointed our group as co-lead, staying all other putative class actions. In December 2020, BHP appealed Justice Moshinsky’s dismissal of its motion to dismiss/strikeout application. In June 2021, the Appellate Court found in our favor and dismissed BHP’s appeal in its entirety. BHP appealed once again, and on October 12, 2022, the High Court of Australia affirmed the Appellate Court’s ruling. Having been unsuccessful before all three levels of Australia’s court system, BHP has exhausted its rights of appeal.

The Netherlands

G&E reached a $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) settlement—the largest in European history—resolving claims under the laws of the Netherlands in a case against Fortis, N.V. and Fortis SA/NV (now called Ageas N.V./S.A.) for materially misleading investors by disseminating inaccurate and incomplete information about its solvency status, and its exposure to the U.S. subprime market in the run-up to Fortis’ purchase of ABN Amro Bank. G&E represented over 180 institutional investors with more than 80 million shares, which was more than 3.5 percent of the Fortis shares that were outstanding at the end of 2008. After seven years of litigation in Dutch and Belgian courts, and months of intense mediation on behalf of at least four different claimant groups, a record settlement of $1.5 billion was reached, exceeding all but a few securities class action settlements in the United States.

Brazil

G&E is pursuing a confidential opt-in securities fraud arbitration on behalf of more than 50 institutional investors (representing over 100 funds) against Brazilian reinsurance company IRB-Brasil Resseguros S.A., filed in early February 2023 with total claimed losses of around $685 million. IRB was once the largest reinsurance company in Latin America and one of the largest in the world. The company took deliberate, undisclosed steps to artificially boost its financial position, and ultimately disclosed fraudulent accounting activity and mismanagement that precipitated several sharp declines in its stock price. Brazilian authorities CVM and SUSEP, and the U.S. SEC and DOJ, conducted investigations and filed complaints with criminal charges, further supporting investors’ claims. The arbitration is proceeding pursuant to the rules of the Brazilian Market Chamber to recover the claimant group’s significant losses.

Japan

In March 2015, G&E (in conjunction with two other U.S. law firms and Japanese counsel) reached a $92.4 million settlement with Olympus Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer of imaging systems and cameras, in the largest settlement of its kind in Japan. The settlement resolves allegations that Olympus falsely misrepresented its finances for over five years and hid large losses by characterizing them in its financials as fees paid to investment advisors for work on corporate acquisitions. This fraud came to light in late 2011 when the company’s former CEO questioned the high advisory fees—the disclosure of which led to a loss of nearly 81% in market capitalization, or more than $6 billion. The accounting scandal also led to government regulatory investigations, millions of dollars in civil penalties, and convictions of company executives across Japan, the UK, and the U.S.

Germany

G&E, together with German counsel, is prosecuting claims in a German court against Porsche and Volkswagen arising out of the “short squeeze” orchestrated by Porsche with respect to Volkswagen shares in 2008. The claims arise out of losses suffered by investors who engaged in short sales and other transactions respecting Volkswagen stock and who were injured by Porsche’s allegedly false and misleading statements concerning its lack of intention to increase its holdings of Volkswagen stock. On behalf of its clients, G&E initially filed claims in the U.S. under the federal securities laws, but after the Supreme Court’s decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, G&E looked for an alternative forum in which the investors might be able to recover their losses, and a case was filed in Germany in late 2011 asserting claims under German corporate and tort law. A large number of institutional investors, from both the U.S. and Europe, have joined the case, asserting damages in excess of $1 billion. In April 2016, the court in Hanover granted G&E’s application to have the case treated as a model proceeding. In December 2016, our plaintiff was officially appointed by the court as model plaintiff. Proceedings are ongoing.

United Kingdom

G&E worked with a number of institutional investors to achieve a $1 billion settlement against Royal Bank of Scotland brought in the High Court in London under UK law. The case involved a ₤12 billion 2008 Rights Offering by RBS, initiated by the company in order to rebuild the company’s deteriorating balance sheet, in which G&E alleged that the associated prospectus contained numerous material misrepresentations and omissions concerning, among other things, its subprime-related credit market exposure and the value of its goodwill relating to its then-recent acquisition of ABN Amro. Just three months after the offering, the bank failed and had to be rescued by the UK government. In January 2009, RBS was forced to disclose that it had incurred billions of dollars in losses relating to its subprime exposures and acquisition of ABN Amro. Investors who purchased shares in the Rights Offering lost nearly all of the value of their investment. The case was settled and a settlement agreement was signed that requires RBS to pay an aggregate of ₤800 million ($1 billion) to the claimants bringing suit. The settlement is the second largest securities fraud recovery in the history of the UK, which is a notoriously difficult jurisdiction for large scale plaintiffs’ litigation.

The Netherlands

G&E represented more than 100 European institutional investors in a pan-European class action settlement with Royal Dutch Shell relating to misrepresentations concerning its proven oil and gas reserves between 1999 and 2004, when Shell traded as two stocks: Shell Transport & Trading and Royal Dutch Petroleum. After several months of negotiations, a settlement was reached, valued at approximately $450 million, including $352.6 million in cash paid from Shell and a payment to non-U.S. shareholders of an additional $120 million fine Shell paid to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition to this amount, Shell agreed to pay all fees and expenses relating to the settlement. The settlement was reached under Dutch law and was the first pan-European class settlement of its kind in history. This ground-breaking settlement provided the opportunity for non-U.S. investors to be part of a novel event by resolving a dispute without resorting to litigation. In addition to the settlement, G&E was able to work with Shell to increase goodwill with shareholders by making corporate governance changes.

G&E reached a record-breaking result in the Steinhoff International Holdings N.V. global settlement, to the tune of €1.4 billion (U.S. $1.6 billion). The settlement is the largest non-U.S. securities fraud settlement on file. It resolves claims arising from Steinhoff’s massive accounting fraud perpetrated on investors who acquired Steinhoff common stock on the stock exchanges of Frankfurt, Germany and/or Johannesburg, South Africa, prior to Steinhoff’s disclosure of accounting issues in late 2017 that caused its stock price to drop an astounding 95%. G&E’s group of claimants include Steinhoff’s largest shareholder, the South African government pension fund GEPF and its state-owned asset manager PIC, as well as 40 other institutional investors. 

After three years of negotiating, the result is extraordinary, given the size of the claims against Steinhoff and its once-precarious financial position. In September 2021, the District Court of Amsterdam approved the Dutch portion of the settlement, and in January 2022, the High Court of South Africa, Western Cape Division, approved the South African portion, which increased the total global settlement amount to €1.4 billion (U.S. $1.6 billion) for all shareholders.

France

119 institutional investors, accused the French company Vivendi of having disseminated false or misleading information between 2000 and 2002, thereby causing them an important stock market damage.

After 22 years of proceedings against Vivendi before American and French courts, the parties have reached an agreement that puts an end to the proceedings pending before the International Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal.

French law firm Hugo Avocats, assisted jointly by Grant & Eisenhofer, Kessler Topaz, Meltzer Check and DRRT, represented 87 of these 119 investors, based mainly in the United States, in Germany, in the UK and in Sweden. The firms are delighted to have reached an agreement that puts a definitive end to this stock market case which lasted for more than twenty years.

Germany

G&E is currently working with a number of institutional investors on a securities action against Volkswagen in Braunschweig, Germany, and a related action against Porsche in Stuttgart, Germany. These investors suffered billions of dollars in losses in connection with their purchases of VW and Porsche securities in the wake of the disclosure that VW had been equipping its diesel cars with “defeat devices” designed to cheat emissions tests in the United States. In March 2016, a complaint was filed against VW on behalf of nearly 300 institutional investors. The case is proceeding under the German KapitalanlegermusterVerfahrensGesetz (Capital Market Investors’ Model Proceeding Act), which is akin to a class action in the United States except investors must affirmatively join the case as plaintiffs in order to recover. Now, more than 500 claimants, representing almost $3 billion in losses, are participating in the case.