Legal scholar to distribute settlement funds
University law professor Francis McGovern has been selected to dole out $400 million to aggrieved investors who bought stock tainted by overly bullish research. The settlement covers those investors who relied on the banks' allegedly tainted research when trading in specific stocks during time periods that generally stretch from the market highs of the late 1990s until after the dot-com meltdown.
The securities include some popular technology stocks, such as Razorfish Inc. and Agilent Technologies Inc., and telecommunications stocks, such as AT&T Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
McGovern, who specializes in mass settlements, was recommended by the Securities and Exchange Commission and appointed Friday by U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan. He will be in charge of devising a plan to distribute the fund, part of an historic $1.4 billion settlement with 10 Wall Street firms and two former analysts over alleged research conflicts. The judge approved the pact in October.
McGovern has previously served as a court-appointed expert in other significant cases, including litigation over DDT toxic exposure in Alabama, the Dalkon-Shield and the silicone gel breast implant. He is also helping to build a legal framework for handling the 2.6 million claims for reparations from Iraq.
Soros to lecture in Reynolds Theater
International investor, philanthropist and author George Soros will present a lecture at 5 p.m. Feb. 17 in Reynolds Theater in the Bryan Center. He will speak on his book The Bubble of America Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power in a talk that is free and open to the public.
In his latest book, Soros argues that the current U.S. administration has based its foreign relations on military might rather than on principles of international law. Soros believes this assertion of American power in the world resembles a financial 'bubble'--the boom in a boom/bust cycle that promises to deliver long-term negative consequences.
Immediately following the lecture, Soros will take questions from the audience and Provost Peter Lange will moderate a panel discussion. Panelists include Duke political science professors Peter Feaver and Robert Keohane as well as Bruce Jentleson, director of Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
Soros, chair of Soros Fund Management LLC, is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute. He has established a network of philanthropic organizations working on social, legal and economic reform programs in more than 50 countries--primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union--but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the United States. OSI and the Soros foundations spend more than $400 million annually.
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