Joint Declaration of Lynn L. Sarko and Marc I ... - Cohen Milstein

e. Analysis of transcripts of depositions taken of key witnesses in the merger litigation;
and,
f. Seven detailed and lengthy interviews of certain key fiduciary Defendants and current
and former high level Merrill executives.
20. Throughout discovery, Co-Lead Counsel sought to avoid replicating certain
discovery previously conducted in connection with this or related litigation. For example, rather
than commencing document discovery from scratch, we negotiated with Defendants’ document
vendor to gain access to Defense documents without the tremendous cost and delay inherent to
the download, production, and establishment of an entirely new document hosting platform. We
likewise attempted to coordinate—and did in fact coordinate—with plaintiffs’ counsel in the
related actions in an effort to minimize the amount of duplication that occurred in preparation for
the interviews. However, because many of the elements of the ERISA claims are substantially
different from those required of the plaintiffs in the related cases, coordination was helpful, to be
sure, but did not obviate the need for our substantial discovery efforts.
21. Co-Lead Counsel and additional Plaintiffs’ Counsel ultimately expended
thousands of hours on efforts related to confirmatory discovery.
D. Settlement Negotiations
22. Although the Settlement in this case came at an early stage, Plaintiffs conducted
themselves reasonably in negotiating a settlement, and conducted thorough discovery thereafter
which has confirmed the adequacy and reasonableness of the Settlement.
23. The Settlement was achieved as a result of hard-fought, arm’s-length negotiations
occurring between December 2008 and the first few days of 2009.
24. Co-Lead Counsel learned, on or about December 10, 2008, that Defendants were
interested in a potential global settlement of the Securities and ERISA Actions.
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