We have to admit that we were crying into our Cheerios a little this week, as the two securities class action cases we thought were going to trial ended up not going that route (keep reading for an update on those two cases) during the first quarter of 2008.

But then we saw that a trial has started in Germany over a share offering in in June 2000 by Deutsche Telekom, the former state owned telecommunications concern.

While the US securities class action settled in 2005 for $120 million, this case is the first test of Gesetz über Musterverfahren in kapitalmarktrechtlichen Streitigkeiten or KapMug which loosely translates to "statute governing representative legal actions on the grounds of capital markets disputes." KapMug was introduced in Germany to deal with mass claims in cases concerning the capital markets.

The Deutsche Telekom matter has generated enough interest and has enough participants that the court hearing the matter was "forced the court to rent a civic hall that provides room for 600 people." Indeed, according to an article from Spiegel Online, approximately 900 lawyers are representing the shareholders.

Though press reports are a bit inconsistent, a few things are clear:

1. The class numbers between 16-17,000.
2. The plaintiffs are seeking approximately $126 million in damages.
3. The German plaintiffs had to wait substantially longer than the US plaintiffs for their day in court.

Spiegel Online, Bloomberg, and the AP all have stories on the Deutsche Telekom case.

For the record, Omnicom Group and Oracle Corp were the two cases scheduled to go to trial that we alluded to earlier.

According to Omnicom's 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2007, "a trial on any remaining portion of plaintiff’s claim is currently scheduled for the first quarter of 2008."

But, in January, Judge Pauley granted the defendants motion for summary judgment. So that was strike one for our securities class action trial predictor (the 7940 Series).

We did not despair, as we had already found a pre-trial order in the Oracle litigation that set the jury trial for March 24, 2008.

But then we saw this motion, seeking an order vacating the March 24, 2008 trial date and reassignment of the case to another district court judge, as Judge Jenkins had been nominated to a seat on the California Court of Appeal, First District.

And finally we saw this notice, vacating all pretrial deadlines and the trial date. Interestingly enough though, Judge Jenkins intends to "resolve the submitted Motions For Summary Judgment before reassigning the case."

Of course, none of this requires us to update our presentation (here) of the 20 federal securities class action cases that have gone to trial since 1996.