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On October 5, 2011, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York granted the defendants' motions to dismiss the Second Consolidated Amended Complaint (the “SCAC”) brought on behalf of a putative class of participants in an employee stock ownership plan sponsored by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ("Lehman").  Previously, in February 2010, defendants successfully obtained the dismissal of plaintiffs’ Consolidated Amended Complaint, although, ultimately, following the issuance of the report of the Lehman Bankruptcy Examiner, Judge Kaplan allowed plaintiffs to re-plead their case. 

The case arose out of Lehman’s bankruptcy filing. The SCAC alleged that the defendants, eleven former and current members of Lehman's board of directors and the seven former members of Lehman’s employee benefits plan committee, had breached their fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") on the theory that the defendants knew of Lehman's financial condition but imprudently failed to protect plan participants.  In dismissing the case, the court found that plaintiffs failed to show that the seven benefit committee defendants knew or should have known of the dire situation at Lehman, that the benefit committee defendants had no affirmative duty to disclose information pertaining to Lehman’s financial condition, and that they did not intentionally connect any purported misrepresentations in Lehman’s SEC filings to the applicable plan documents.  The court also found that the eleven director defendants were not plan fiduciaries under ERISA.

Simpson Thacher represented the seven benefit committee defendants in this action.

The STB team consists of Michael Chepiga, Jonathan Youngwood, Janet Gochman, Hiral Mehta and Jonathan Sabin.