Judge Denny Chin today sentenced disgraced financier Bernard Madoff to the maximum possible sentence - 150 years.

Reuters has a story here, the Associated Press here, and Bloomberg, here.

It is interesting to note that none of the individual crimes to which Madoff pleaded guilty carries a sentence greater than 20 years. The 150 years is derived from having the sentences run in consecutive terms rather than the more common method of concurrent terms. As noted over on the WSJ Law Blog last week:

In most federal cases in which there are multiple charges, the judge sentences a defendant to serve a prison term on the most serious count, and then the others are served concurrently with that one. It is rare that a judge sentences a person to the maximum for every count, but that’s what the government advises here

As noted in the Saturday edition of the WSJ (sub. req'd), Madoff is not eligible for a minimum security prison camp, and thus is likely to be sent to one of the low- or medium-security prisons near New York City like Fort Dix, N.J., Otisville, N.Y., or Allenwood, Pa.

This is a plea of a different nature.

This past weekend, I rode in the American Diabetes Association's 2009 Tour de Cure.

Many of you know that I used to be a pretty hard-core cyclist, riding more than 500 miles every week in high school and college. And a few of you know that my father in law is diabetic.

That is why I am asking for your support - it's not too late to pledge any amount that you are able - using the link below.

Donate Here!

(Yes that is me wearing my official RiskMetrics Group cycling jersey just after completing the ride)

The Tour de Cure is a series of fund-raising cycling events held in 40 states nationwide to benefit the American Diabetes Association. Last year, more than 38,000 cyclists in 78 Tour events raised nearly $16 million to support the mission of the ADA: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.

Diabetes impacts not just those that have been diagnosed (23.6 million children and adults -- 8.0% of the population in the US alone), but their families, friends, co-workers, and all of us. In 2007 alone, the total annual economic cost of diabetes was estimated to be $174 billion.

Any amount is appreciated, and will go a long way towards helping find an end to the struggle that millions of people face in coping with diabetes.

Thanks for the indulgence, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Once again, it is time to update the options backdating numbers, with the recent settlement of litigation involving alleged options backdating at Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) for $72 million.

Of the 39 options backdating cases that have been filed as securities class actions, 27 have now reached a resolution. Of the resolved cases, 9 of those cases have been dismissed and 18 have settled.

The eighteen settlements total $1.48 billion, for an average of $82.5 million. But, removing the largest settlement (UnitedHealth Group) lowers the average back to $34.71 million.

As we have previously noted, the options backdating cases have settled more quickly on average, than other cases. The eighteen cases have settled in an average of 607 days. Removing the two outliers, Mercury Interactive, and Brocade, which were filed earlier and added the options backdating allegations in a later amended complaint, drops the average time from filing of initial complaint to tentative settlement for the remaining 16 cases to 564 days. The numbers have been slowly creeping up as the remaining cases linger, but the average is still below historical levels.

As always, our complete analysis can be accessed in this presentation.

Nearly five years ago, this blog noted that defendants faced with a securities class action complaint often issued press releases stating that the complaint was "without merit" and that the company intended to "vigorously" defend itself.

The issue was "the apparently unanimous use of the word 'vigorous' for these 'denial' press release by defendants."

The prior author of this blog issued a challenge relating to the practice, and your current author repeated the challenge three years ago.

Well, just as securities class actions are on the rise north of the border (see NERA report, here), Canadian defendants are using the same language as their US counterparts.

Recently, Timminco Limited, a Canadian producer solar grade silicon for the solar photovoltaic energy industry, was hit with a securities class action over alleged misstatements regarding the company's growth and profit potential.

Well the response from Timminco is in and you guessed it - they intend to "vigorously defend these allegations."

On a side note, the law firm prosecuting the Timminco class action, Kim Orr, appears to have taken a page or two out of the playbooks of some US firms.

Perusing the bio of Victoria Paris, the Kim Orr barrister handling the Timminco action, we note that she has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in class actions, much like Boies, Schiller & Flexner or Susman Godfrey.

And of course, as noted by the Securities Docket, Kim Orr is working with an obscure US based class action firm, Milberg, on other potential Canadian class actions.

1. Of the 39 allegedly false and misleading statements, the jury found for the plaintiffs on 16 of those statements.

2. Of those 16 statements, the jury found that all four defendants acted recklessly with respect to 15 of those statements.

3. On one of the statements, two defendants (Household and former Chairman and CEO William Aldinger) were found to have acted knowingly, one defendant (Gary Gilmer, the former Vice-Chair of Consumer Lending) was found to have acted recklessly, and one defendant (David Schoenholz, the former CFO, COO, and vice-chairman of the Board) was found not liable with respect to that statement.

4. The percentage of responsibility that the jury attributed to each defendant is as follows:

Household - 55%
Aldinger - 20%
Schoenholz - 15%
Gilmer - 10%

5. The verdict form attributes an inflation factor to each day of the class period. From 7/3/99 - 3/22/01, the jury found that there was no inflation of Household's share price attributable to the alleged misstatements and omissions.

6. But from 3/23/01 - 10/11/02, the jury found that the alleged misstatements and omissions inflated Household's share price between $23.94 and -$4.66. It seems that with the negative inflation number the jury is indicating that on a few days during the class period, the defendants actually caused the share price to go down. It is unclear whether the plaintiffs will amend their complaint to add a subclass of common stock sellers that were harmed by this deflation!

7. Last, but not least, the jury found that defendant Gilmer had no control person liability under Section 20(a).

A copy of the jury verdict is available here.

We now have a plaintiffs' verdict in the liability phase of the latest such case, Lawrence E. Jaffee Pension Plan v. Household International, Inc., a securities class action that has been kicking around the courts since August 2002.

The finding of liability means that the trial will go on to the next phase, the damages phase.

We have updated our complete list of federal securities class action trials, which can be accessed here.

Lead counsel for the plaintiffs is Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP and Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP is lead counsel for the defendants.

Pat Coughlin, the Coughlin Stoia firm's Chief Trial Counsel, said the following in a written statement:

“We are extremely proud of our trial team and pleased that defrauded shareholders have won this historic victory. The jury’s verdict is a victory for the millions of Americans suffering as a result of deceptive predatory lending practices and a victory for all investors fighting for greater corporate transparency, honesty and integrity. The verdict is also a testament to our firm’s willingness and ability to see a case through on behalf of our clients, despite facing adversaries with tremendous power and resources.”

No word yet from the defense attorneys on the case.

Stay tuned for further updates.

SLW readers are entitled to a 20% discount off the registration fee for the below conference, simply by admitting that they read Securities Litigation Watch and mentioning code "SLW" when registering.

6th Securities Litigation Conference - Managing the Newest Risks and Exposures
June 10-11, 2009
Venue TBD - New York, New York

Highlights:

• The Enormous Challenges and Opportunities Facing Securities Litigation in 2009
• The Greatest Challenge of All: Calculating the Losses in the Current Securities Litigation
• From Behind Enemy Lines: The Perspective of Two Prominent Plaintiff Attorneys
• How to Effectively Defend the Newest Complex Structured Products Claims

The conference brochure is available here, or for more details, visit the conference webpage.

As always, readers are encouraged to send information on securities litigation related events to us via the "Contact Us" link on the upper left hand side of this blog.

For the full list of events, please go here.

Once again, it is time to update the options backdating numbers.

Of the 39 options backdating cases that have been filed as securities class actions, 26 have now reached a resolution. Of the resolved cases, 9 of those cases have been dismissed and 17 have settled.

The seventeen settlements total $1.41 billion, for an average of $83.1 million. But, removing the largest settlement (UnitedHealth Group) lowers the average back to $32.37 million.

As we have previously noted, the options backdating cases have settled more quickly on average, than other cases. The seventeen cases have settled in an average of 585 days. Removing the two outliers, Mercury Interactive, and Brocade, which were filed earlier and added the options backdating allegations in a later amended complaint, drops the average time from filing of initial complaint to tentative settlement for the remaining 15 cases to 537 days. The numbers have been slowly creeping up as the remaining cases linger, but the average is still below historical levels.

As always, our complete analysis can be accessed in this presentation.