In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation
- Jed Rakoff
- 1:19-cv-01704
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation, Judge Rakoff extended settlement deadlines for some class members and all claims submissions.
Class members in the settlements with Deutsche Bank, First Tennessee Bank and FTN Financial Securities Corp., and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC. The opt-out and objection extension applied only to class members who did not receive a notice packet before January 16, 2020; the claims-submission extension applied to all class members.
What happened
In In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation, three potential class members raised concerns about notice, the online claims process, and the settlement materials. The court found plaintiffs’ counsel’s response satisfactory.
The court extended the deadline to opt out of or object to the settlements to February 14, 2020 for class members who did not receive a notice packet before the original January 16 deadline. It also extended the deadline for all class members to submit claims to February 28, 2020.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff entered the order. The order addressed settlement-notice timing and claims deadlines; it did not decide whether the settlements should receive final approval.
The detailed version
- In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation · No. 1:19-cv-01704
- Jed Rakoff
- Jan. 31, 2020
Background
The court received letters from three potential class members concerning plaintiffs’ settlements with Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., First Tennessee Bank, N.A., FTN Financial Securities Corp., and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC. The concerns involved the timing of mailed notice packets, the online claims portal, the contents of the notice, the length of the class period, and the claims-filing process.
The court ordered plaintiffs’ counsel to respond. It stated that it was satisfied with counsel’s response, which was attached as an exhibit to the order. The response explained that notice was sent through nominees such as brokerage firms and financial institutions, as well as through publications, a national newswire, financial websites, and the settlement website. The response also described delays by some nominees in providing beneficial-owner information.
Court’s Action
To address concerns about late notice, the court extended the opt-out and objection deadline to February 14, 2020 for class members who did not receive a notice packet before the original January 16, 2020 deadline. The extension applied to those class members because of nominees’ untimely production of beneficial-owner information.
The court also extended the claims-submission deadline for all class members to February 28, 2020. The order did not state that the settlements were finally approved. It addressed the administration of notice, objections, exclusions, and claims in connection with the settlements.
Effect on Class Members
Class members who received notice before January 16, 2020 were not included in the stated extension of the opt-out and objection deadline. The February 28 deadline applied to all class members who wished to submit claims. The order also stated that the court was satisfied with plaintiffs’ counsel’s response to the concerns raised by the three potential class members.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued the order. The opinion text contains an unclear day in its date line, while the supplied case metadata identifies January 31, 2020 as the filing date.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.