Research Center Events

Debate Centers around Securities Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement at Ross Roundtable

"Since the financial crisis, the number of class-action lawsuits against financial firms has spiked dramatically and SEC settlements with companies and managers are on the rise," says NYU Stern Professor of Accounting and Finance Baruch Lev.
On March 23, a group of leading researchers, practitioners and regulatory agents gathered to examine the implications of the current economic crisis for shareholder litigation and regulatory enforcement.

Hosted by NYU Stern’s Vincent C. Ross Institute of Accounting Research, in cooperation with NERA Economic Consulting, the event featured several discussants including David Bergers of the US Securities and Exchange Commission; Jan Larsen and Stephanie Plancich of NERA Economic Consulting; and NYU Stern Professors Joshua Ronen and Mary Billings. Professor Lev and Elaine Buckberg of NERA Economic Consulting led the roundtable in which several recent trends and forecasts were discussed, including:
  • The recent uptick in SEC settlements, composed of low- and no-value settlements
  • The increased number of law suits targeting asset management firms and complex financial instruments, such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and credit default swaps (CDS), for their role in the financial crisis
  • The slowing of credit crisis-related class action filings, while total securities class action filings remained flat
  • An indication that future settlements may increase in size, based on the uptick in median investor losses for recent filings
Read more about NYU Stern’s Vincent C. Ross Institute of Accounting Research