Kevin M. Askew

Partner

Los Angeles

kaskew@orrick.com

Read full biography at www.orrick.com

Kevin Askew, a partner in Orrick’s Los Angeles office, is a securities litigator. He represents companies, officers and directors in securities class actions, shareholder derivative suits, and other complex business litigation matters. Kevin also has substantial experience representing financial institutions, issuers and individuals in connection with SEC investigations and enforcement actions.

Kevin has litigated matters in state and federal courts around the country, in arbitration, in administrative proceedings, and on appeal.

Kevin has also devoted a significant portion of his time to pro bono matters. Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project awarded Kevin its 2016 Pro Bono Award in recognition of his representation of an asylum seeker in a long-running matter.

Kevin has published articles on securities-related topics in the Daily Journal, the National Law Journal, Bloomberg BNA, and other publications.

Posts by: Kevin Askew

Fannie and Freddie Shareholders to US: 2008 Government Takeover of Mortgage Giants Good For the Country; Not So Much For Us

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Can shareholders of a government-sponsored enterprise successfully challenge the constitutionality of a government takeover of the entity?  Shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will try to do so in a $41 billion class action filed against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims on June 10, 2013. Plaintiffs allege that even though the Federal Housing Finance Authority’s 2008 takeover of the mortgage giants benefited the nation as a whole, it harmed the companies’ shareholders and violated their constitutionally protected private ownership rights.

Congress established Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand the nation’s secondary mortgage market by increasing the availability of funds to finance mortgages and home ownership. The government operated Fannie and Freddie until 1968 and 1989, respectively, when the companies were reorganized as “government-sponsored enterprises,” or federally chartered private corporations. Since then, both companies have operated as shareholder-owned, publicly traded corporations. But in 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, both companies were placed under the conservatorship of FHFA, pursuant to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA).

Plaintiffs allege that prior to the 2008 takeover, the government adjusted the companies’ lending standards and capital restraints to encourage the companies to purchase a greater number of risky subprime securities. While this ultimately led to significant weaknesses in the companies’ portfolios, Plaintiffs contend that the companies nonetheless remained adequately capitalized and financially sound, and did not need the conservatorships. According to Plaintiffs, the government improperly bullied the companies’ boards into acquiescing in the takeover. READ MORE →

News of the (Shareholder Derivative) World: Record-High $139 Million Settlement in News Corp. Phone Hacking Suit

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Stack of Money

Putting an end to shareholder derivative litigation arising from News Corp.’s phone-hacking scandal, the company’s directors agreed last week to a record-breaking $139 million cash settlement. According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the deal is the “largest cash derivative settlement on record.” The settlement will be funded by directors’ and officers’ insurance proceeds.

Plaintiffs initially filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery in March 2011, asserting claims based on the company’s proposed acquisition (since completed) of Shine Group Ltd., a television and movie production company owned by the daughter of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. According to plaintiffs, the News Corp. directors breached their fiduciary duties by permitting the purchase of Shine at an excessive price. The court later consolidated various related cases, and plaintiffs’ allegations expanded to include claims that the company’s directors failed to properly investigate the UK phone-hacking allegations that led to the demise of News Corp.’s News of the World. READ MORE →

Another Securities Case for the Supreme Court. Next Up: Ponzi Scheme Cases

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Agreeing to take up yet another securities case, the Supreme Court granted cert on January 18 in three related appeals arising out of the alleged multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme involving R. Allen Stanford’s Stanford International Bank. The Court’s decision in this case will likely resolve a circuit split over the scope of the preclusion provision of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA).

Congress passed SLUSA in 1998 because plaintiffs were bringing class actions in state court to get around the tough pleading standards and other limitations imposed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. SLUSA precludes state law class actions involving misrepresentations made “in connection with” the purchase or sale of a security covered under SLUSA. Lower courts have struggled with the meaning of those three words: “in connection with.” If a state court case has anything at all to do with securities, will it fail?How closely must a claim relate to the sale of covered securities before SLUSA bars state law remedies? The Supreme Court is about to weigh in on these questions.

In the Stanford ponzi scheme cases, the plaintiffs are investors who purchased CDs issued by Stanford International Bank. The investors asserted claims against third-party advisors (including law firms and an insurance broker) under Texas and Louisiana law, alleging that the investors were duped into believing the CDs were backed by safe securities. Although the CDs themselves were not securities covered by SLUSA, the third-party advisors argued that SLUSA nevertheless barred the state law claims because the alleged misrepresentations related to the SLUSA-covered securities that purportedly backed the CDs. The district court agreed, dismissing the actions. But the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court, holding that the alleged fraudulent scheme was only “tangentially related” to the trading of securities covered by SLUSA. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the Ninth Circuit that misrepresentations are not made “in connection with” sales of SLUSA-covered securities when they are only “tangentially related” to those sales. This means the Fifth and Ninth Circuits are at odds with the Second, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, which have all adopted broader views of SLUSA’s preclusion provision.

The third-party advisor defendants asked the Supreme Court to resolve the split, and the Supreme Court agreed, given that the circuit split threatensinconsistent outcomes in some of the biggest, mostcomplex, and multi-layered securities cases. The Court’s resolution will likely go a long way towards defining the role of state courts in adjudicating important class actions relating to securities issues.