A once-gigantic investor class action over Pfizer Inc.’s marketing of the painkillers Celebrex and Bextra finally met its demise on Tuesday, just two months before the decade-old case was scheduled for trial. In a victory for Beth Wilkinson of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and cocounsel at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and DLA Piper, a federal judge in Manhattan refused to give plaintiffs a new chance to explain how Pfizer caused their losses.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain granted summary judgment to Pfizer, extinguishing claims that the company misled shareholders about cardiovascular risks associated with its painkillers. Swain had already disqualified a key expert witness retained by plaintiffs counsel at Grant & Eisenhofer. In Tuesday’s ruling she made clear that the disqualification was fatal to the case.
