WoW, does anyone think there could be a chance in hell "the
unraveling is beginning"?
nj.com
Report: NY law firm under investigation by federal grand jury
The Associated Press
1/25/02 10:33 PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A federal grand jury is investigating whether a leading class-action law firm based in New York paid plaintiffs to take part in investor suits against U.S. companies, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reported.
The investigation focuses on Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, a law firm that has filed hundreds of shareholder lawsuits against some of the nation's largest corporations, and that was responsible for 85 percent of all securities class actions in California last year.
"(The probe) is about Milberg Weiss buying plaintiffs," one unidentified source told the legal journal, which published the report Thursday.
Grand jury subpoenas have been issued to Milberg Weiss and stockbrokers who reportedly are being asked to testify about providing names of investors to Milberg Weiss.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles U.S. attorney general's office had no comment on the report.
The law firm is led by San Diego attorney William Lerach, who is attempting to be named lead counsel in the onslaught of investor lawsuits against Enron Corp., the bankrupt energy company. An assistant for Lerach said Friday the firm had no comment.
Milberg Weiss has reclaimed more than $20 billion for its clients and is currently litigating more than 300 securities class actions against such companies as Aetna Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Computer Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Enron Corp., Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and Transmeta Corp.
Lerach has become such a force in the class-action realm that several companies rallied against him and successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995. The law raised the standards of evidence needed to prove corporate fraud and restricted plaintiffs who appeared in numerous suits to no more than five class actions in three years. |
