In the past two weeks there have been two law firm press releases alerting us to trials in securities class actions.  First, on June 8, the Orrick law firm announced that direct marketing company Thane International, Inc. "secured a complete defense verdict in a shareholder suit after a week-long trial, when U.S. District Judge James Selna of Santa Ana, Calif. ruled in its favor last Thursday."  Orick stated that

"Since Congress amended the securities laws at the end of 1995, only six cases nationwide have actually made it all the way to a verdict. "

Next, on June 17, the Grant & Eisenhofer law firm announced that it had successfully represented a group of institutional bondholders in a seven week jury trial in the District of South Carolina.  G&E stated that this group of institutional investors had won a $200 million judgment against Kenneth Winger and Paul Humphries, former CEO and CFO respectively of Safety-Kleen Corporation, and that the case was

"only the fourth securities fraud case to reach trial since the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995."

Six?  Four?  As SLW diehards may recall, I have been trying to track down the number of Post-Reform Act securities class action trials for a while now.  Here's the current SLW scorecard on this:

1.  In re: Health Management Securities Litigation (BDO Seidman, LLP) (1999)--(Defendant BDO reportedly received a defense verdict in a class action seeking $37 million for BDO's alleged participation in accounting fraud and failure to uncover accounting abuses).

2.  In Re Real Estate Associates Limited Partnerships (2002), (reportedly tried to a $184 million jury verdict in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California).

3.  In re: Clarent Corp. (2005) (in which Bernstein Litowitz reportedly "obtained only the second securities fraud class action verdict in favor of investors since the 1995 passage of the PSLRA.").

4.  Thane International (2005) (see above)

5.  Safety-Kleen (2005) (see above)

* (There is also the Equisure case--reportedly a $45.3 million default judgment against Equisure.  I don't think this should really count since the company apparently failed to show up for the trial!).

I'm not going to count Equisure, so by my count Thane was #4 and Safety-Kleen was #5. 

There have also been at least three trials since 1995 based on Pre-Reform Act conduct:

Finally, there is the AT&T case (2004), which did not result in a jury verdict but which settled after three weeks of trial for $100 million.

That's all I've got!  It is curious to see the flurry of trials in 2004-2005.  Please add to this list if you can....