Court Appoints Lead Plaintiff Group To Prosecute Historic Bank of America Securities Class Action

A group of three American and two European public pension funds have been granted Lead Plaintiff status in a securities class action lawsuit on behalf of investors in Bank of America.

The Lead Plaintiff group includes: the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio; the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System; the Teacher Retirement System of Texas; Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn, represented by PGGM Vermogensbeheer B.V.; and Fjärde AP-Fonden. 

The lawsuit alleges that Bank of America made materially untrue statements and failed to disclose material information in connection with its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.  As Lead Plaintiff, the group of public pension funds will be responsible for protecting the interests of all similarly situated Bank of America investors, including a wide assortment of individual and institutional investors.  In effect, serving as the court-appointed Lead Plaintiff will empower the group of public pension funds to pursue the litigation in the best interests of all members of the investing public harmed by the defendants’ historic alleged misconduct.

In an Order entered July 1, the Honorable Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York noted that the selected group of public pension funds had the largest financial interest of any movant seeking appointment as Lead Plaintiff and that they are precisely “the type of sophisticated institutional investors envisioned by Congress” as Lead Plaintiffs.

“Our group of public pension funds has been given both a great opportunity and a great responsibility,” said Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. “We now will protect the rights of Bank of America investors, including those of the five funds that will serve as Lead Plaintiff and the public employees and teachers who depend on them in this extraordinarily important case.”

“We feel privileged to represent global investors’ interests by striving for adequate loss recovery for all shareholders and essential corporate governance reforms,” said Johan van der Ende, chief investment officer of PGGM Investments.

The caption of the case is In re Bank of Am. Corp. Sec., Deriv. & ERISA Litig., No. 09-MDL-2058 (S.D.N.Y.) (Chin, J.).  Click here to see Judge Chin’s order appointing Lead Plaintiff.