NEW YORK, July 01, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Labaton Sucharow LLP and Bleichmar Fonti Tountas & Auld LLP announced today a proposed $120 million settlement with one of the largest global providers of products and services for the oil and gas industry, Weatherford International Ltd. (Weatherford). The firms served as co-lead counsel for the class on behalf of lead plaintiffs Sacramento City Employees' Retirement System and Anchorage Police & Fire Retirement System in Freedman v. Weatherford International, Ltd. No. 1:12-cv-2121 (S.D.N.Y.).
"Sacramento City Employees' Retirement System is committed to prosecuting securities class actions in order to protect our members’ assets, and we are very pleased with the successful result reached for investors,” said Chief Investment Officer John P. Colville for the City of Sacramento, who was instrumental in the mediation process to achieve this recovery.
“This excellent result is great news for the Municipality of Anchorage and the thousands of damaged Weatherford shareholders,” said Ed Jarvis, Executive Director of the Anchorage Police & Fire Retirement System.
Represented by Labaton Sucharow partners Joel H. Bernstein, Ira A. Schochet, and Eric J. Belfi, and Bleichmar Fonti Tountas & Auld partners Javier Bleichmar and Joseph Fonti, the plaintiffs alleged that Weatherford knowingly or recklessly filed false financial statements during the class period between March 2, 2011 and July 24, 2012, touting illusory benefits of Weatherford's tax structure and hiding the company's inadequate tax accounting procedures. By the end of the class period, Weatherford had issued three restatements, and its failure to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) resulted in overstated earnings of more than $900 million.
Aided by experts in, among other complex areas, corporate tax accounting, Labaton Sucharow and Bleichmar Fonti pursued the class' claims by seeking the widest possible amount of discovery. The firms repeatedly challenged defendants, by motion practice when necessary, to produce all relevant information. This ultimately generated more than 1.3 million documents for review and resulted in over 20 depositions.
Achieving this settlement required over three years of intense litigation, including defeating defendants’ motion to dismiss, obtaining class certification, completing fact discovery, filing four expert reports, and preparing for expert discovery and summary judgment. The firms achieved the settlement on June 30, 2015.