NYSE, NASDAQ HELP FUND FIGHT AGAINST PROP. 211.Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services In an unusual move, the nation's stock exchanges have spent more than $500,000 to defeat a California ballot initiative that would make it easier for investors to sue companies for securities fraud. Opponents say Proposition 211 would reverse the impact, in California at least, of a federal law passed in December that limited such lawsuits. The nation's biggest stock market, the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. , and the second biggest, Nasdaq Stock Market Nasdaq stock market The first electronic stock market listing over 5000 companies. The Nasdaq stock market comprises two separate markets, namely the Nasdaq National Market, which trades large, active securities and the Nasdaq Smallcap Market that trades emerging growth companies. , each contributed $250,000 to the fight. A coalition of trial lawyers, labor, investor and senior citizen groups backing the initiative say out-of-state interests, including the Securities Industry Association, have financed about 70 percent of the $5.2 million raised so far. Meantime, 49 securities law firms This list of the world's largest law firms by revenue is taken from The Lawyer and The American Lawyer and is ordered by 2006 revenue:[1]
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of to Los Angeles have pumped $7.3 million into the pro-Prop. 211 campaign. The stock markets rarely contribute directly to political campaigns, but they say defeat of Prop. 211 is essential to the well-being of companies listed on their markets and the economy as a whole. ``If enacted, this would decimate dec·i·mate tr.v. dec·i·mat·ed, dec·i·mat·ing, dec·i·mates 1. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group). 2. Usage Problem a. Silicon Valley,'' said Nasdaq spokesman Michael Robinson. Corporations fear the measure will make them more vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits, which rarely go to trial and are frequently settled out of court. High technology companies complain they're targets of such suits, which are expensive to settle and drain money away from creating new jobs. But lawyers and investor groups reel off a number of notorious fraud cases involving high-technology companies. Federal regulators, for example, recently sued California-based Comparator comparator Instrument for comparing something with a similar thing or with a standard measure, in particular to measure small displacements in mechanical devices. In astronomy, the blink comparator is used to examine photographic plates for signs of moving bodies. Systems Corp., accusing the company, formerly listed on Nasdaq, of misleading investors about its finances and development of new fingerprint identification technology. President Clinton, who vetoed the federal measure limiting securities lawsuits but then saw it become law when Congress overrode o·ver·rode v. Past tense of override. that veto, reversed course on the overall issue last month when he told high-technology executives that he opposes Prop. 211. The proposition would broaden California law to make it easier for individuals to sue for securities fraud and recover money looted from their retirement savings accounts. It also would prohibit the state Legislature from changing laws concerning attorney-client fee arrangements. Prop. 211 would allow punitive damages Monetary compensation awarded to an injured party that goes beyond that which is necessary to compensate the individual for losses and that is intended to punish the wrongdoer. for securities fraud claims, which aren't allowed under federal law, and make a number of other significant changes to securities laws. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion