In the December-January issue of Bank Accounting & Finance, John Cooney and John Beaty published "Litigation and Enforcement One Year into the Credit Crunch." The article analyzed the types of lawsuits that have been filed against banks, investment banks, and other financial institutions since the credit crisis manifested itself in July 2007.
In particular, the article highlights the difficulties that will be presented concerning whether corporate officers and directors violated a duty of care, in circumstances in which some of the largest and most sophisticated investors in the world had simultaneously purchased assets whose prices later plunged. Similarly, calculation of damages will be complicated because of the significant number of intervening events that defendants can identify that also contributed to the decline in the price of the assets in question.