On Monday, June 10, Financial & Risk President David Craig joined BBC News Presenter and event MC Emily Maitlis for the 40^th annual Thomson Reuters Extel Awards, which honor excellence across the European financial industry.

The event is a big deal: As Reuters put it, “The awards are among the most coveted prizes in the European financial industry and often referred to as Oscars of the sector, being based on the votes of thousands of industry insiders.”

Some 450 financial industry leaders from across Europe attended this year’s event at London’s Guildhall. The attendees were just a few of the over 15,000 individuals from 74 countries who voted in this year’s Extel survey. In all, more than 670,000 votes were cast. That number included over 2,200 buy-side firms, 2,500 analysts from 250 brokerage firms/research houses and nearly 1,000 of Europe’s largest quoted companies worldwide.

“The industry needs a trusted independent benchmark for performance,” said David Craig, “and the 40-year Extel Awards have grown from strength to strength; this year a record 600,000+ votes were cast. The award ceremony was a ‘who’s who’ in financial markets research. It’s powerful that we are able to create this benchmark and community.”

The 2013 survey identified industry several industry trends:

• Access to company management remains highly prized by investors and vital in their decision process
• Sustainability and ESG issues matter more for investors, but they want research to be integrated into mainstream analysis & themes
• All sides of the investment community are highly interested in social media, but struggle to identify practical applications for investment decision support

The roll call of winners included at least one big surprise: Bank of America Merrill Lynch was named Leading Pan-European Brokerage Firm for Equity and Equity-Linked Research.

To learn more:

• Watch the webcast replay (login required)
• Review the full list of results
• Visit the Thomson Reuters Extel site

What are the Extel Awards? Each year since 1973 we have surveyed Europe’s top brokers, buy-side leaders and corporate financial professionals to find out who among their colleagues they consider the best in the business. The first winners were announced at the Extel Awards in 1974, and since then the annual event has become a magnet for the European financial industry’s most senior movers and shakers.

The Oscars of financial services – the 2013 Extel Awards

U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo of the Middle District of Pennsylvania focused much of his certification order on the question of common claims and class-wide relief and rejected the defendants’ contention that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions prevented certification in the suit.

(Westlaw users:  Click here for more stories from Westlaw Journal Class Action).

In granting certification, the judge offered an interpretation of the Supreme Court’s March ruling in Comcast Corp. et al. v. Behrend et al., 133 S. Ct. 1426 (2013), and the landmark 2011 decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), so adding to the body of class-certification case law.

Judge Caputo said the plaintiffs met the four requirements for class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 — numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy — and showed that their claims can be decided for the entire class.

(Click here for the opinion.)

The ruling combined the claims of multiple suits against former judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella, both of the Luzerne County Common Pleas Court, and a detention center official.

The suits, first filed in February 2009, allege the judges violated the constitutional rights of juvenile offenders by denying them an impartial hearing and access to counsel.

 Conahan and Ciavarella allegedly received more than $2.6 million in kickbacks in return for supporting the construction of a new detention center in the county and then placing juveniles there unlawfully, the suits say.

Co-defendant Robert Powell, the detention center owner, allegedly paid the judges for sending offenders to his facility and helping him get millions of dollars from the county.  He was not criminally charged.

The suits also allege the judges violated federal racketeering law by using mail and wire communications to conduct their scheme and accept transfer of funds.

Conahan and Ciavarella pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud in January 2009 and resigned from the bench.

In August 2011 Ciavarella was convicted on 12 counts including racketeering and was sentenced to 28 years in jail and ordered to pay $965,000 in restitution.  Conahan is currently serving 17 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy in September 2011.  He was ordered to pay $900,000 in fines and restitution.

Since the scandal broke in 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated more than 2,400 juvenile adjudications handed down by Ciavarella and Conahan.

Unlawfully detained juveniles and their parents seek compensatory and punitive damages, alleging the defendants put personal gain ahead of civil rights, including sending minor juvenile offenders to the detention center despite the recommendations of probation officers.

Judge Caputo rejected the defendants’ arguments in opposition to certification and certified two classes of more than 2,400 members each:

•           All juveniles the judges placed in detention centers between 2003 and 2008 whose placements the state high court has since reversed.

•           All juveniles and their parents who paid fines and restitution and had their wages garnished because the judges improperly placed a juvenile in a detention center.

According to the certification order, the defendants had argued that the plaintiffs had not met the Rule 23 requirements for certification, in particular the high standards set by the Supreme Court decision in Dukes.

In that case, the Supreme Court unanimously decertified the largest employment discrimination class in history — more than 1 million female Wal-Mart employees — finding that the workers who charged the company with discrimination failed to show questions of law or fact common to the class.

“Dissimilarities within the proposed class are what have the potential to impede the generation of common answers,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in the Dukes ruling.

The case involved “literally millions” of employment decisions, he said, and the women failed to show that if the case went forward, they would receive “a common answer to the crucial question[,] why was I disfavored.”

In the “kids for cash” suit, the defendants contended the plaintiffs could not propose a common answer to the question, “Why was I detained?” because of the varying circumstances among the juveniles.

Judge Caputo said there is one crucial difference between the current suit and Dukes: The current suit involves the same alleged injury, denial of rights, by the same two judges, rather than by Wal-Mart store managers spread across the country.

The juvenile plaintiffs here “were all adjudicated in the same county, before the same judge, and as a result of the same alleged unlawful conspiracy,” Judge Caputo said.

He also rejected the defendants’ contention that damages in the suit cannot be determined on a class-wide basis following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Comcast.

In that case, the court ruled 5-4 that Comcast cable subscribers could not bring antitrust claims as a class because the plaintiffs failed to show the proposed damages could be determined for the entire class (2 million subscribers in 16 counties across three states).

According to Judge Caputo’s order, the juvenile plaintiffs sought certification under Rule 23(c)(4), which was not at issue in Comcast.  Rule 23(c)(4) provides for class treatment of particular issues while leaving others to individual resolution, the order said.

David Hanselman, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery who was not involved in the case, said he thinks Judge Caputo’s reasoning for distinguishing this case from Dukes was “sound,” but found his conclusion about Comcast “troubling.”

Attorney David Hanselman

Distinguishing Comcast and finding it was not a barrier to certification in this case followed the dissenting opinion in that case more than the majority’s, Hanselman suggested.

“The facts of this case are so egregious that the court wanted to certify the class of aggrieved juveniles,” he said.

Hanselman said Judge Caputo’s conclusions about Comcast come directly from the minority opinion in that case in two significant ways: The judge declined to extend Comcast beyond its holding and advanced the concept of bifurcating liability.

Additionally, Hanselman said, “the judge failed to answer the question of what happens in the case involving a liability-only class once liability has been decided in a trial: How does a jury adjudicate how each juvenile was injured and the extent of those injuries?”

Finally, Judge Caputo ruled that class action is a superior method for resolving the claims.

“As a result of their experiences during [juvenile court] proceedings, many class members harbor a distrust of the judicial system, rendering it unlikely that they will seek redress individually,” he said.

When asked for his thoughts on the impact of this ruling on future cases, Hanselman said the facts here are so unique and egregious the case may be distinguished, so that a future party may not be able to cite it as a comparison to support its arguments.  But he added, “it will be interesting to see how future courts treat the question of whether Comcast authorized a liability-only class under Rule 23(c)(4).”

Wallace et al. v. Powell et al., No. 3:09-cv-286, 2013 WL 2042369 (M.D. Pa. May 14, 2013).

Class of more than 4,000 certified in ‘kids for cash’ scheme

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Refugees in 2012 – graphic of the day

The global financial crisis left a permanent mark on our understanding of what it means to be prosperous, how to achieve prosperity as well as on future generations. At the Thursday, June 20th day of innovation at the International Arts & Ideas Festival in New Haven, Connecticut, join us for a discussion on: Global Innovators: From Recession to Prosperity.

Thomson Reuters 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators report is the foundation for this discussion focused on corporations and institutions around the world that are at the heart of innovation. Panelists will reflect on the study and discuss the direct correlation between innovation and economic prosperity, including the questions of:

• Who are the leaders in innovation?
• How does innovation help us overcome economic challenges?
• How is innovation changing the world in which we live and work?

Join us!

Panel Discussion

Global Innovators: From Recession to Prosperity

5:30-6:45pm

Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street

New Haven, Connecticut

Panel discussion on “Global Innovators: From Recession to Prosperity”

As technology innovation continues, the digital marketplace continues to evolve as well. The challenge however is that technology is agnostic: good guys and bad guys all have access to the same tools, and they dictate how it is used – for good or for bad – raising concerns and plenty of anxiety over the emerging virtual economy.

Thomson Reuters and the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children co-hosted a first-of-its-kind conference recently in Washington, D.C. The event, The Virtual Economy: Potential, Perplexities and Promises, was created to explore the issues, opportunities and challenges surrounding virtual economies.

Read more.

Dealing with the virtual economy

The Thomson Reuters Foundation continues to successfully contribute to the enhancement of women’s rights internationally. The organization runs a number of groundbreaking programs aimed at empowering women and men through news, information, free legal assistance and media development. Its revamped website, trust.org, is one of the fastest-growing sources of information on women’s rights giving a voice to the ongoing struggles faced by millions of women seeking freedom, justice and equality.

The Foundation has been instrumental in putting women’s right at the top of the global news agenda through the Trust Women’s Conference and the fight against human trafficking. As a direct result of last year’s conference, in April 2013, Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. launched an international working group dedicated to fighting human trafficking.

In tune with the legal expertise of Thomson Reuters, the Foundation is also proactively engaging with the legal community to connect a number of the best NGOs and social enterprises with pro bono lawyers across the world. A number of these organizations are involved in the field of women’s rights, and TrustLaw Connect has been instrumental in helping them tackle a number of issues, including women’s access to health and education, land rights and human trafficking.

Read more.

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Strengthening women’s rights around the globe

A final ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services now opens up Federal Financial Participation funds (FFPs) to use for the purpose of data analytics and screening. This means that Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) sitting within the state Attorney General offices are now able to allocate FFP dollars to analytics tools, lifting the past financial burdens that the states have faced. In the growing fight against Medicaid fraud, analytics has proven to be a valuable method for agencies to reduce fraudulent billing activities of the Medicaid system. 

Broadening funding for analytics could help fight fraud at a time when Medicaid services are expanding. Analytics has the ability to provide force multiplier effects focusing staff on the high-dollar and more likely cases as well as provider screening benefits. Looking at 2012 recovery data, the combined staff of 1900 employees in all state MFCU offices recovered an impressive ~$3 billion in fraudulent payments. Just think what the departments could do with additional technologies! 

Along with the new ruling, three critical elements were outlined to help MFCUs and State Medicaid agencies comply with the new availability of funds. 

1. MFCUs and State Medicaid agencies must fully coordinate the use of data analytics and identification of possible provider fraud – considering priorities that could be subject to program integrity and audit reviews.
2. MFCUs must coordinate  their results with the State Medicaid agency to confirm that results are interpreted correctly.
3. MFCU staff should be properly trained. 

Read more in the Federal Register here.

Good news for MFCUs

Would you like infographics like this on your website, blog or other social media? Contact us and visit our Reuters Agency blog for insights and discussions on the changing media industry.

Smartphones compared – graphic of the day

In an unreported decision, the 1st District Court of Appeal panel said the trial court “prejudicially erred in excluding relevant and admissible evidence” and failed to properly instruct the jury.

(Westlaw users: Click here for more stories from Westlaw Journal Automotive.)

The suit concerns an accident that happened after a man lost control of a van equipped with tires made by Continental Tire North America.

The accident in question happened Sept. 12, 2005, in Fremont, Calif.

Milagros Ibarra, 78, was driving a 1988 Chevrolet G-20 van with Alex Novak, 81, in the right front-passenger seat.  Ibarra lost control and hit a utility pole after the right rear tire blew out, according to the appeals court opinion.

Ibarra and Novak sued Continental and Peralta Auto Center, which serviced the van sometime before the accident.  They said Peralta should have warned Ibarra to remove the tire from service.

Ibarra eventually settled.  The court dismissed Novak’s strict liability claim and the negligence claim proceeded to trial.

Novak died in November 2011.  In May of that year the Alameda County Superior Court jury found 11-1 for Continental and 12-0 for Peralta.

Novak’s estate appealed, citing the exclusion of key evidence and the lack of proper jury instructions on the failure-to-warn claim and the “sudden emergency doctrine.”

The doctrine says a person confronted with imminent danger is not expected or required to use the same judgment and prudence required in calmer moments (see box).

In response, Continental said the Superior Court properly excluded the “hearsay-riddled and unfounded evidence,” and that the jury instructions in question were not applicable to the facts.

The defendant said the driver’s mishandling of the vehicle after the blowout was the only explanation for the collision, and that the jury reached the proper conclusion.

Continental also claimed the tire failed because it was poorly maintained and had been damaged in a road-hazard impact before the accident occurred.

Appeals court: ‘Prejudice here is unmistakable’

The 1st District appellate panel said the Superior Court, after erroneously excluding user manuals and trade publications relevant to whether Continental knew old tires could rupture, dismissed Novak’s strict liability claim for failure to present that very evidence.

This evidence was also relevant to negligence, the appeals court said, as was testimony that dealers often return old, unused tires to the manufacturer because rubber degrades over time, making the tires dangerous.

“And the erroneous failure to give the requested instruction on the sudden-emergency doctrine more than likely affected the jury’s evaluation of the reasonableness of Ibarra’s response to the tire blowout,” the panel also said.

“These errors prejudicially affected the verdict and thus require reversal.”

Novak v. Continental Tire North America Inc. et al., No. A133073, 2013 WL 2297447 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 3 May 24, 2013).

Plaintiff wins new trial in tire-failure accident case against Continental

Another big day for Netflix, Samsung’s new phone