Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann leads nationwide bipartisan effort to protect public pension funds, private investors

From Attorney General Marc Dann's blog
(submitted by Tom Curtis)

Responding to the position taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission, AGs from 20 states, commonwealths and territories join U.S. Supreme Court brief in Tellabs securities fraud case

March 9, 2007

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could profoundly affect the ability of states to protect their pension funds and, by extension, private investors from securities fraud. The case, Tellabs, Inc. et al. v. Makor Issue & Rights Ltd. et al., will be heard by the Court on March 28, 2007.

The Attorney General’s decision to become involved in the case was, in part, a response to a brief filed in the case by the Securities and Exchange Commission in which the Commission took a position that would make it more difficult for public and private institutional investors and other shareholders to recover losses in securities class actions.

Attorneys General of both political parties from across the country have signed on to the brief – known in court parlance as an amicus curiae brief – in which Mr. Dann argues that making it much more difficult to have securities cases heard in court “would severely damage one of the most powerful mechanisms for controlling fraud in the marketplace: legitimate securities lawsuits by large institutional investors such as the States’ pension funds.”

“States like Ohio regulated the securities industry decades before the federal government acted to curb fraud, and we’ve been the first line of defense for investors for nearly a century,” Attorney General Dann said in a statement released as the brief was filed. “The suits we file don’t just protect our pension funds, retirees, and the taxpayers, they protect private investors, legitimate businesses and the securities markets themselves.”

“But if the Court rules for Tellabs, the bad actors in the market win and the public loses. That is why I decided to intervene in the case and why Republican and Democratic attorneys general from across the United States have joined me,” Mr. Dann said. “We all recognize that the destruction of the firewall we provide will open the door to fraud, erode investor confidence, and jeopardize America’s economy. And we all recognize that we could not sit back and allow that to happen.”

The Attorneys General of Alaska, California, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Samoa, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia joined Attorney General Dann in signing onto today’s brief.

• Brief for Ohio and 23 Other States, Territories and Commonwealths as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents

For more information contact:

Leo Jennings III at 614-374-8355 or 614-387-1108