Representative Cases

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.