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Covington regularly defends companies facing class actions in nearly every substantive area of our litigation practice. We defend companies facing class actions involving antitrust, securities, consumer protection, product liability, employment, ERISA, contract, and accounting issues, among others. Our litigators have been successful in denying and limiting class certification in novel ways that have substantially reduced or eliminated some of the largest lawsuits facing our clients.
Judicial determinations of the size and scope of the class turn upon the complexities of the substantive area involved, and our substantive and industry expertise has proven an invaluable advantage in defeating plaintiffs’ attempts to certify large damage classes. Even in those cases in which class treatment may be a foregone conclusion, litigation over class certification principles may allow early determinations that affect the merits and lead to favorable dispositions.
For example, in In re Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (“Freddie Mac”) Securities and Derivative Litigation (S.D.N.Y.), we represented Freddie Mac in approximately 20 securities class action and derivative lawsuits brought in the wake of the Company's $5 billion restatement of earnings. Covington did not oppose class certification, but instead developed a novel approach that, counter-intuitively, expanded the size of the class while substantially reducing the damages that could be claimed on behalf of the class. After the court agreed with our arguments, we obtained a very favorable global settlement of the actions.
Representative Matters
- Represented seven medical schools and teaching hospitals in an antitrust lawsuit brought on behalf of a class of 200,000 current and former medical residents. We took the lead in opposing class certification on behalf of all defendants. The cases were dismissed after Congress passed legislation (which Covington played a major role in drafting) designed to end the lawsuit.
- Represent Wells Fargo Bank in several consumer class actions under California’s Unfair Competition Law (Section 17200), raising various challenges to bank fees.
- Represented Schering-Plough Corp. in a class action alleging that the company and various individual defendants breached their fiduciary duty under ERISA in a “stock drop” lawsuit.
- Defended IBM in ground-breaking class action lawsuits alleging age discrimination and improper calculation of benefits under cash balance plans.
- Represented Procter & Gamble in state and federal class actions brought by purchasers of pediatric cough suppressants containing dextromethorphan.
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