News & Events

On March 18, 2016, the Firm obtained a victory on behalf of the former members of Lehman Brothers’ Benefits Committee in ERISA stock drop litigation arising from the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. The Second Circuit affirmed the July 10, 2015 decision of the Southern District of New York dismissing Plaintiffs’ Third Amended Complaint. The Firm had previously won two dismissals in the District Court and obtained an affirmance of those dismissals in the Second Circuit, before the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit’s decision for reconsideration in light of its 2014 decision in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer. On remand, the District Court once again dismissed the case, explaining that the plaintiffs’ latest complaint could not survive the standard in Dudenhoeffer. In its first decision interpreting and applying  Dudenhoeffer, the Second Circuit agreed with the District Court and held that, under Dudenhoeffer, Plaintiffs’ allegations based upon public information or a hypothetical investigation of non-public information were not plausible and failed to state a claim. The Simpson Thacher attorneys representing the former members of the Lehman Brothers’ Benefits Committee in obtaining the dismissal were Jonathan K. Youngwood, Janet A. Gochman and Alexander Li. This ruling was the subject of articles in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg BNA, The Litigation Daily, New York Law Journal and Law360.