Partner Mark Solomon Talks with Investment & Pensions Europe About Class Actions in the United Kingdom and Europe

Class actions are on the rise in U.K. and European courts, increasing institutional investors’ ability to protect shareholders and affect ESG improvements.

An Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) special report titled “Class actions: Is Europe catching up with the US?” explores the rise of opt-out class actions in European courts, distinguishing features of U.S. and U.K. courts and European jurisdictions, pioneering class actions in the Netherlands, and other issues related to the increasing use — and variety — of class actions in international jurisdictions.

IPE talked with Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP partner Mark Solomon for the article. Solomon is the leader of Robbins Geller’s international litigation practice and has regularly represented U.S.- and U.K.-based pension funds and asset managers in securities litigation in federal and state courts.

Institutional investors have a duty to protect the assets they either own or manage for their beneficiaries. As Solomon notes: “Pension funds should regard class actions as an asset class integrated within the portfolio, albeit created by exogenous wrongdoing.” European institutional investors increasingly have joined class actions in the United States.

Since 2015, when competition case class actions became available in the United Kingdom, institutional investors have increasingly recognized the benefits of joining in such litigation. Opt-out class actions, still a distinguishing feature of U.S. litigation as compared with Europe’s opt-in class actions, now appear more likely to develop in Europe, according to the report.

“Over 30 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to more market-shaking corporate scandals than I could count, and at the core of every one lies a huge corporate governance failure. So, EU investors are increasingly looking at every tool — especially US or EU group litigation, which have been long under-utilised — to reform corporate misconduct,” says Solomon.

Read the article at https://www.ipe.com/special-reports/class-actions-is-europe-catching-up-with-the-us/10070422.article

About Robbins Geller

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the world’s leading complex litigation firms, representing plaintiffs in securities fraud, shareholder derivative, antitrust, corporate takeover, and consumer fraud and privacy cases. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the world’s largest plaintiffs’ firms, and the Firm’s attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities, antitrust, and consumer class action recoveries in history.

The Firm is ranked #1 on the most recent ISS Securities Class Action Services Top 50 Report for recovering more than $1.75 billion for investors in 2022 — the third year in a row Robbins Geller tops the list. And in those three years alone, Robbins Geller recovered nearly $5.3 billion for investors, more than double the amount recovered by any other plaintiffs’ firm. The Firm secured the largest-ever securities fraud class action settlement — $7.2 billion — in In re Enron Corp. Securities Litigation.

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