Broker-Dealer Litigation - Greenberg Traurig LLP

Stiching Pensioenfonds ABP v. Countrywide Fin. Corp., 802 F. Supp. 2d 1125 (C.D. Cal. 2011).
The court applied California’s three-year statute of limitations to dismiss the plaintiff’s
California state-law fraud and aiding and abetting claims arising out of the plaintiff’s purchase of
residential mortgage backed securities. The court concluded that public press coverage and the
filing of similar lawsuits more than three years prior to the filing of the first amended complaint
were sufficient to put the plaintiff on inquiry notice of the alleged wrongdoing.
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Anschutz Corp. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 785 F. Supp. 2d 799 (N.D. Cal. 2011).
The court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss as time-barred the plaintiff’s marketmanipulation
claims under two-year statute of limitations applicable to the California Corporate
Securities Law of 1968. The defendant argued that when the SEC issued a cease-and-desist
order in 2006, it put the plaintiff on inquiry notice of potential problems in the market for auction
rate securities and of the defendant’s possible involvement in those problems, even though the
defendant was not a party to the SEC’s order. The court rejected this argument, holding that “at
this stage of the litigation plaintiff has adequately alleged that it did not have notice of
[defendant’s] conduct sufficient to trigger the statutes of limitations.”
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Carbon Capital Mgmt., LLC v. Am. Express Co., 932 N.Y.S.2d 488 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011).
The court affirmed the trial court’s finding that the plaintiff’s claim for breach of
fiduciary duty was partially barred by the statute of limitations. The court noted that the
limitations period applicable to a breach of fiduciary duty claim depends on the substantive
remedy sought. The plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty claims that were based on an actual
fraud were timely under the six-year limitations period for fraud-based claims. However, the
plaintiff’s other breach of fiduciary duty claims were untimely under the applicable three-year
limitations period. The court also held that the plaintiff’s fraud claim was timely under the
applicable six-year limitations period.
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Ingham v. Thompson, 931 N.Y.S.2d 306 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011).
The court reversed the trial court’s denial of one of the defendant’s motions to dismiss,
finding that plaintiff’s aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment claims
were time barred. The court found that because the fraud claim was not merely incidental to the
breach of fiduciary duty claim, the limitations period for the aiding and abetting was six years.
As the complaint did not allege any conduct by the moving defendant after 1995, the claim was
barred by the limitations period. The court noted that the limitations period was not tolled as (1)
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