Product Liability Attorney Blog

The attorneys at Carey & Danis are looking into claims that Scottrade, Stifel Nicolaus and Edward Jones violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by deceiving investors about the investment characteristics of auction-rate securities and the auction market in which the securities are traded.

Auction-rate securities are municipal or corporate debt securities or preferred stocks that pay interest at rates set through periodic auctions. The instruments typically have long-term maturity dates or no maturity date.

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NEWS RELEASE

May 23, 2008

St. Louis – John J. Carey of the St. Louis law firm Carey & Danis has been appointed to serve as a member of the plaintiffs’ steering committee in the multidistrict Trasylol litigation pending before a Florida federal court.

On May 22, U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks entered the order announcing the plaintiffs’ steering committee, which is responsible for managing and conducting the pretrial proceedings, in the case In re: Trasylol Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1928.

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Auction-rate securities, promoted as “safe as cash” investments, are marred by a history of manipulation, Bloomberg News reports.

In “Auction-Rate Collapse Costs Taxpayers $1.65 Billion,” journalists Michael Quint and Darrell Preston note that over the course of 24 years, auction-rate securities grew into a $330 billion business.

But a pattern of industry secrecy and manipulation has emerged.

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Bayer’s anti-bleeding drug Trasyslol will now only be available for investigational use, according to a statement released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Although Bayer has agreed to remove remaining stocks of Trasylol from the U.S. market, patients who are at a higher risk for blood loss during heart bypass surgery and who have no acceptable alternative treatment may be given Trasylol. However, a doctor must first verify that the “benefits of the drug clearly outweigh the risks for their patients.”

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On the same day that the results of a long-awaited Canadian study on Trasylol were released, the drug’s maker, Bayer, announced it was pulling the anti-bleeding drug off the shelves.

Yesterday, the BART study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that heart surgery patients who were given Trasylol were 53 percent more likely to die than patients who were given comparable and cheaper blood clotting drugs.

On May 14, Bayer notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that it will begin removing remaining Trasylol stock from the American market, most of which is in warehouses and in the possession of hospitals and physicians.

Bayer should have taken this step long ago.

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Patients who were given the anti-bleeding drug Trasylol, known generically as aprotinin, had a 53 percent higher death rate than patients who were given comparable drugs.

That’s the conclusion reached in the long-awaited Canadian study on Trasylol, known generically as aprotinin, announced today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In an editorial that accompanied the BART study, Dr. Wayne Ray and Dr. Michael Stein of Vanderbilt University wrote:

“Thus, in all likelihood, this is the end of the aprotinin story.”

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After discovering that contaminated heparin is still available in some hospitals, medical centers and pharmacies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration renewed its efforts to recall the tainted blood thinner last Friday.

On May 9, the FDA sent out a notice requesting “health professionals and facilities review and examine all drug/device storage areas, including emergency kits, dialysis units and automated drug storage cabinets to ensure that all recalled heparin products have been removed and are no longer available for patient use.”

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Wachovia Securities has received subpoenas and inquires from federal and state regulators probing the auction-rate securities market.

The information was disclosed to investors in a Wachovia filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 12.

According to the filing, the SEC and several state regulators have requested information concerning the underwriting, sale and subsequent auctions of municipal auction-rate securities and auction-rate preferred securities. Wachovia admitted that it fully anticipates further investigation.

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Despite requests from congressional investigators, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration refused to turn over a list of Chinese heparin suppliers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The request was made as part of a House subcommittee probe into the circumstances surrounding more than 81 deaths in the U.S. linked to contaminated heparin. The FDA refused to identify the Chinese suppliers, claiming that a confidentiality agreement bars them from releasing the information.

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Today’s issue of the Baltimore Sun reveals what it is like to be a patient the end of the contaminated heparin supply chain.

In “Drug safety crisis hits home,” Claire Panosian Dunavan relates her cousin’s recent experience after she received heparin in a U.S. hospital. The cousin, Laura, was rushed to the emergency room after a dangerous blood clot known as a deep vein thrombosis, a serious condition that can cause death, was discovered. To counteract the clot, she was given the blood thinner heparin.

Dunavan writes:

“As soon as a nurse started her anticoagulant drip, Laura thought she was dying.

‘I never felt so terrible in my life,’ she later recalled. Sweaty and breathless, her chest and bowels heaving, she pressed her call button and yelled for help.’”

Continue reading " The Impact of Tainted Heparin " »

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2008
CONTACT: JOSEPH P. DANIS
MICHAEL J. FLANNERY
COREY D. SULLIVAN
Phone: 1-800-721-2519

NEWS RELEASE

May 9, 2008

St. Louis, MO – The law firm of Carey & Danis LLC has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of persons who purchased auction rate securities from UBS AG (NYSE: UBS), UBS Securities LLC and UBS Financial Services Inc. between May 8, 2003 and Feb. 13, 2008 and who continued to hold the securities as of Feb. 13, 2008.

The class action lawsuit, Bonnist v. UBS AG, et al., 08 CIV 4352, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit alleges that UBS AG and its subsidiaries UBS Securities and UBS Financial Services violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by deceiving investors about the investment characteristics of auction rate securities and the auction market in which the securities are traded.

Continue reading " Carey & Danis LLC Announces Auction Rate Securities Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against UBS (NYSE: UBS). " »

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The attorneys at Carey & Danis are looking into claims that chocolate manufacturers sweetened their bottom lines by engaging in a price-fixing scheme that may have unfairly increased costs for wholesalers, retailers, the corner candy store and consumers.

Last November, Canada’s Competition Bureau searched the offices of several candy makers as part of a pricing probe. Search-warrant affidavits submitted by Canadian investigators alleged that top executives of the Hershey Co., Mars and Nestlé met in coffee shops and restaurants and at conventions to set prices.

In February, the German Federal Cartel Office raided the offices of seven chocolate makers, many of the same ones already under investigation in Canada.

While the U.S. Department of Justice has not confirmed that it has started an investigation, several companies have admitted that they have been contacted by federal investigators.

Continue reading " Chocolate Makers Face Price-Fixing Allegations " »

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In last Sunday’s New York Times, columnist Gretchen Morgenson compared the current auction-rate securities market to a hostage crisis. She wrote:

“Some $300 billion worth of investors’ funds – advertised as being as easy as pie to cash in – are still locked up. And brokerage firms that got investors into this mess are doing little to help.”

The article, “How to Clear a Road to Redemption,” notes that even as investors face a financial meltdown due to the frozen markets, broker-dealers are still gorging themselves at the fee trough. That’s because the broker-dealers who agreed to run the auctions still earn fees even though 70 percent of the weekly auctions are failing.

Continue reading " Auction-Rate Securities Investors Held Hostage " »

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