Mr. Block is a co-founding partner of Block & Leviton. With a career spanning more than thirty years, Mr. Block is recognized as one of the nation’s preeminent class action attorneys. Mr. Block was recently named as one of the nation's leading Plaintiffs' Financial lawyers by Lawdragon. Mr. Block began his practice well before the passage of the PSLRA, and is highly experienced in litigating under the PSLRA. He represented the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System in In re: BP Sec. Litig., No. 4:10-MD-02185 (S.D. Tex.), charging that BP misled investors as to the amount of oil leaking from the Macondo well after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Mr. Block, on behalf of the plaintiffs, successfully argued against defendants’ motions to dismiss the litigation and for certification of the class and in opposition to summary judgment. The case settled for $175 million, representing approximately 50% of investors' losses. Mr. Block also represented the Brockton Retirement System in an action challenging Google’s attempt to split its stock into voting and non-voting shares. See In re Google, Inc. Class C S’holder Litig., case no. 7469-CS (Del. Ch. Ct.). Two days before the start of trial, the action settled for significant corporate governance changes and a payment ladder valued up to $7.5 billion, which was designed to protect shareholders against any diminution in the value of their shares during the first year of trading. As a result of the payment ladder, shareholders ultimately recovered $522 million in cash and stock in May 2015. The payment ladder also caused the newly-issued non-voting shares to trade higher than they otherwise would have during the first year of trading. Thus, investors who sold their shares during the pendency of the payment ladder were able to mitigate losses associated with those sales.
In addition, Mr. Block has represented some of the country’s largest institutional investors, including the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (PRIM), the State of Michigan Retirement Systems, the Florida State Board of Administration, the New York City Pension Funds, Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System, and the State Universities Retirement System of Illinois.
This case involved allegations that former Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond king Michael Milken used First Executive to buy illiquid junk bonds to create the illusion of a trading market. The case settled for over $100 million.
Xerox manipulated its financial results to meet target Wall Street earnings expectations and the action was settled for $750 million.
Bristol Myers was charged with issuing false financial statements and the action settled on appeal for $300 million.
Lernout & Hauspie allegedly created phony revenue and manipulated its financial statements. The case was settled for $180 million.
Symbol and its executives were charged with manipulating their financial results and investors received $127 million through a settlement of the case.
Prison Realty was charged with misrepresentations about its business and financial results and investors recovered over $100 million.
One of the first subprime crisis cases, American Home Mortgage was charged with failing to properly account for its vast portfolio of subprime loans. After filing for bankruptcy, the case was settled for $50.5 million.
Case settled for $24 million after the company and its officers were charged with accounting fraud.
Alleged violations of the federal securities laws; settled for nearly 40% of all cognizable damages.
In commenting on the attorneys who argued competing motions for Summary Judgment, which Mr. Block argued on behalf of plaintiffs, the Court said “I really enjoy working with all of you. I have spent a lot of time speaking to young lawyers about how to be…a good advocate in the courtroom. I wish I could just take a video of you guys, and I would show that. It has really been a professional honor to me consistently throughout the case.”
In commenting on the settlement achieved by Mr. Block the Court said “the settlement is – gosh . . . the fact that it’s occurring within the context of a securities case, which is very difficult for plaintiffs to win, is extremely impressive to me . . . [T]his is a matter which has been fairly litigate by people who know what they’re doing.”
The Court noted, when approving the settlement achieved by Mr. Block as one of the co-lead counsel that counsel had “pursued this fact-intensive and legally complex litigation vigorously over a nine-year period, rejected offers of settlement for amounts inferior to the amounts upon which the parties ultimately agreed, and assumed significant risks of non-recovery. Co-Lead Counsel had to overcome the disclaimers and uncertainties of insurance coverage, and vigorous advocacy of extremely able and deeply-staffed defense counsel. … And they did their work efficiently, with minimal duplication, and maximum effectiveness.”
Throughout his career, Mr. Block has been privileged to work on behalf of some of the largest and most sophisticated institutional clients in the United States and abroad. A sampling of those clients include:
