The securities fraud case is shaping up as a contest between two potential lead plaintiffs with claimed losses in excess of $200 million. One is a duo of major California pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTERS. The other is an unlikely coalition comprised of two Ohio pension funds, a Texas fund, and two foreign investors. Both possibilities present interesting lead counsel stories. (We should note that a third bid for lead plaintiff status has been filed by a trio of funds represented by Scott & Scott.)
Start with the Ohio/Texas/foreign investor group. They filed a joint motion to be named lead plaintiff, signed by Frederic Fox of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer. The motion says, however, that Kaplan Fox will share lead counsel status with two other firms: Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann and Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check. In the memo in support of its lead plaintiff bid, the funds–which call their coalition “The Public Pension Funds”–claim to have the largest financial interest in the litigation against BofA. They also say they decided to form a lead plaintiff group independent of their attorneys and have conferred several times about the case.
