Chicago Clearing Corporation (CCC) helps institutional investors recover funds in hundreds of litigations each year, both in the United States and around the globe. Below is a summary of the opportunities and the challenges that investors face when participating in securities litigations outside of their own jurisdiction.

To talk about our solution today, please call us at 312-204-6970 and ask for Brian Blockovich, CCC’s President and General Counsel (pictured above).

The Opportunities:

Financial recovery opportunities through securities and antitrust litigations, long a common feature of the US, are increasingly common wherever stocks are traded. This spike in international securities litigations is largely thanks to the US Supreme Court’s Morrison v. National Australia Bank decision, which severely limited the exposure of foreign firms to domestic US securities lawsuits. In the wake of this decision, investors turned beyond the US court system for other means of redress and recovery.

In the past five years alone, investors from Australia to the Netherlands, from Japan to Italy and beyond, have recovered billions in various currencies. However, the means to a substantial recovery varies from country to country, and it is never through the same means that investors tend to file and recover funds in US litigations.

What’s Different?

The main difference between US class actions and international mass action litigation is the distinction between opt-out and opt-in. In the US and Canada, the class action system is opt-out, meaning investors are assumed to be part of the class unless they choose not to be included. Investors need not do anything until the case is settled to begin participating in a recovery. Here, investors must choose to opt out of the class action and pursue independent litigation or they are automatically included (or opted into) in the class. There is no need to actively opt-in—you can wait until the end, file a claim, and get a recovery.

In most other jurisdictions, the opposite is the case. A settlement will only be available to those who actively opted-in to the litigation before any settlement occurs. This effectively makes each claimant an active plaintiff, often compelled to produce documents of authority, proofs of purchases, and on some occasions obliged to answer questionnaires about their purchase decisions. (There are some exceptions; in the Netherlands, for example, there are occasionally settlements open to non-participating litigants.)

How CCC Can Help

CCC tracks international cases using the same methods by which we track domestic litigations. We also further supplement our international research with alerts and regular communications with multiple practitioners in international law and foreign jurisdictions, including law firms and third-party litigation funding firms. Once we find a prospective or active non-US litigation, we load all key data points into our database and share this information with our clients through our website, case alerts, and our newsletter.

Before opting into a non-US litigation, it is important for each investor to review the terms of the litigation closely to determine whether it is in their best interest to join the class. International cases are not as simple or routine as US litigations. As mentioned above, varying levels of document production, proofs of ownership and authority, questionnaires, and other participatory tasks are often required of claimants. Though these are rarely onerous, they are certainly greater requirements than for a typical US securities class action.

With these factors in mind, CCC will consult with each client before committing to a non-US litigation. We review the agreements and funding documents, assess the benefits and risks, and recommend what is best for each client, or each account. If there are similar cases against the same corporation brought by competing firms, we review each litigation and recommend the suit with the best chance of a robust recovery. We do this in close consultation with attorney partners both here in the US and overseas. This is a collaborative effort, but we have the economic incentive to cover every case possible for every client.

CCC Monitors the World of Litigations—So You Don’t Have To

As mentioned above, CCC tracks and discovers international litigations as part of the same process by which we track and discover domestic litigations. Our team uses a number of subscription services, web agents, monitoring services and proprietary software tools to constantly find new complaints, new settlements, key changes in ongoing litigations and industry trends. Throughout each day, CCC employs these tools to review litigation funder and plaintiff attorney websites for any new case or new development. Further, CCC's staff scours news websites and press release feeds to help us detect likely settlements and litigations long before they occur. 

New information is continually loaded into our database and made immediately available on the client reporting website and through the CCC Notification service. We also provide regularly-updated securities class action news, and a periodic newsletter, highlighting all the opportunities currently open to claimants.

Ready to start filing?

So are we. We can get you onboarded today and filing claims in the US and abroad immediately. Call us now at 312-204-6970, or email us at sales@chicagoclearing.com.