Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP, a national plaintiff side law firm, is pleased to announce the March 14, 2022 opening of its new office in Los Angeles, California. The firm’s new office – its second in California and fifth nationwide – will focus on complex litigation involving employment, consumer protection, and antitrust matters. The Los Angeles office, located on 300 S. Grand Avenue, is within walking distance to both state and federal courthouses.

On February 10, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York preliminarily approved a class settlement between Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, on behalf of a putative class of health care payors, and Vyera and two of its executives, including Martin Shkreli, over their alleged anticompetitive conduct to protect exorbitant price increases for Daraprim.

On February 14th, 2022, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed BlockFi had agreed to a $100 million settlement for failing to register their crypto lending products and for violations of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Securities Act of 1933.

On January 27, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut gave preliminary approval to a $420 million all-cash deal to settle claims from a class of investors over misrepresentations related to the value of Teva’s generics drug business, which has been the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits over far-reaching market allocation and price fixing practices.

On January 14, 2022, United States District Court Judge Denise Cote ordered Martin Shkreli to pay a total of $64.6 million to seven states defrauded by Shkreli’s pharmaceutical company, Vyera, through its illegal pricing scheme for the drug Daraprim.  These states include New York, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina and Virginia.  Judge Cote further ordered an injunction forever banning Shkreli from participating “in any capacity” in the pharmaceutical industry.

Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky represented plaintiffs in two of the 10 largest California class action settlements of 2020, and one of the largest 10 in the nation in 2020, according to legal verdict and settlement list makers. 

Schneider Wallace is an experienced California employment class action law firm, able to assist with wage and hour disputes, unpaid overtime, discrimination, harassment, or other employment matters. Our experienced team of trial lawyers has more than 20 years of experience litigating complex employment cases and achieving the best possible recovery for our clients.

Printer workers from Segerdahl Corp. won class certification for their claim executives of the company violated federal law when they sold the company for less than it was worth. Judge Andrea Wood approved the class certification on June 16th, 2020, for allegations that the executives pocketed a large portion of the $265 million paid for the company.

ERISA, or the Federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, imposes strict duties on those responsible for administering retirement plan assets. Limiting fees and costs is one of the duties of the fiduciary, and allegations of $100m plus set aside for bonuses and other forms of executive compensation could violate ERISA.

On December 9, 2021 Judge Troy L. Nunley of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California temporarily blocked implementation of California’s California Assembly Bill 824, legislation that imposes restrictions on “pay for delay” settlements in pharmaceutical litigation, including the greater of $20 million or three times the affected commerce.

On December 17, 2021, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey largely denied the motions to dismiss from Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical unit and affiliates from a patent attorney’s False Claims Act lawsuit over the prostate cancer treatment Zytiga, finding that the complaint adequately alleged that the company obtained a patent under false pretenses, before the eventual invalidation of the patent. The lawsuit alleged Janssen obtained the patent after several failed attempts patent regulators by misrepresenting Zytiga’s market share and then trying to delay generic competition with sham infringement litigation.

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform released a staff report detailing the results of their multiyear investigation into U.S. drug pricing. The report found numerous drug companies raising prices “with abandon, especially when they succeed in delaying or blocking competition”. The report included internal documents revealing that manufacturers have raised prices specifically to meet ever-increasing revenue targets, which were often tied to higher executive bonuses, and efforts to shut down competition from the generic-drug industry by using anti-competitive strategies.