On June 13, 2024, the Firm secured a victory for client M&T Bank Corp. in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware in connection with a proposed investor class action related to the $3.7 billion merger between M&T Bank and Hudson City Bancorp Inc. U.S. Circuit Judge Evan Wallach, sitting by designation in the District of Delaware, denied plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class certification, which purportedly adduced new evidence in support of their theory of class-wide dividend damages. Judge Wallach also denied plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration of his February 7 Order denying their previous motion for class certification.
Plaintiffs, former shareholders of Hudson City Bancorp, filed suit in 2015 alleging violations of Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Among other things, plaintiffs claimed that defendants failed to disclose material information about the regulatory risks related to the merger, which was ultimately delayed for over two years. In rejecting plaintiffs’ efforts at class certification, the Court ruled that “Plaintiffs did not support their original Motion for Class Certification with evidence that would be sufficient for the putative class to prevail at trial,” and “the cumulative evidence and arguments put forward by Plaintiffs in support of their Dividend Damages in their original and Renewed Motions for Class Certification fail to satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23 by a preponderance of the evidence.”
The team received a “Shout Out” in The American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” coverage.
The Simpson Thacher team included Jonathan Youngwood, Janet Gochman, Katherine Hardiman Sherwood, Noah Gimbel, Pierce MacConaghy, Margerite Blase and Miranda Hernandez.