After federal lawsuit alleged seamen were subjected to human trafficking and forced labor, ship’s owner agrees to new precedent-setting policies for informing workers of their rights under U.S. law
SAN FRANCISCO – Two Indonesian men have settled their claims against an American fishing boat captain whom they allege subjected them to forced labor and human trafficking. In a precedent-setting move for the U.S. commercial fishing industry, the ship’s owner also agreed to a code of conduct and to inform future seamen of their rights under U.S. law, setting the stage for improved business practices across the fishing industry. The lawsuit was also the first such litigation brought under the U.S. Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act.
“This settlement should be a wakeup call to the commercial fishing industry,” said Agnieszka Fryszman, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll who represents the plaintiffs and has been recognized nationally for her work combating human trafficking and forced labor. “There’s simply no excuse for turning a blind eye to human trafficking, and we look forward to continuing our efforts to hold others in the industry accountable.”
In a September 2016 federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Sorihin (who uses one name) and Abdul Fatah alleged they were promised good jobs at good wages in the U.S. commercial fishing industry. Instead of the promised job at the promised wage, the men were taken to sea and transferred against their will while in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to another ship, the Sea Queen II, where they allege they were subjected to forced labor fishing for tuna, swordfish, and other seafood in the waters around Hawaii and California at less than the promised pay.
The lawsuit alleged that the owner of the ship, Thoai Van Nguyen, verbally abused the plaintiffs and refused to return their passports, telling Sorihin and Fatah that they could not leave the Sea Queen II unless the workers paid him thousands of dollars. The plaintiffs alleged they were forced to perform hazardous work for up to 20 hours per day without adequate protective equipment, and were denied medical treatment for injuries sustained on the job, including wounds to the face and a thumb that was impaled by a machine on board. The plaintiffs eventually took their opportunity to escape when the Sea Queen II docked in San Francisco, California.
In addition to confidential financial terms, the ship’s owner also agreed to implement a code of conduct and to distribute information outlining the rights and protections guaranteed under U.S. law, as well as contact information for help lines and legal assistance for those whose rights are violated. Additional protections for current and future fishermen aboard the Sea Queen II secured by the settlement include: guaranteed access to passports; the provision of medical attention for injuries; minimum rest hours and appropriate protective clothing at no cost; the right to terminate the contract early without incurring penalties; and employment contracts in the employee’s own language.
“I hope the captain treats the seamen as he has agreed to. The help lines on the flyer will be very useful for seamen in difficulties. I hope these protections help others from feeling trapped like I did,” said Abdul Fatah.
“I hope the code of conduct will bring better treatment to seamen on the Sea Queen and in the fishing industry. No one should have to go through what I went through,” added Sorihin. “That is why I had to bring this case. I feel more at peace now.”
Carole Vigne, Senior Staff Attorney at Legal Aid at Work, who is also representing these plaintiffs shared this hope: “The basic protections secured in this agreement lays the groundwork for minimum labor standards in the commercial fishing industry. We hope it becomes a model for all captains who want to do right by their immigrant crew.”
The International Labor Organization has found that commercial fishing operations are increasingly recruiting seamen from developing countries to cut costs. Advocates say these workers are especially vulnerable to coercion and exploitation because of their isolation at sea.
“I hope the critical victory we secured today inspires Indonesians and others in this country who have been subjected to gross injustices to take a stand and seek help,” said Yenny Teng-Lee, who also represents the plaintiffs and is active in the Indonesian-American community in the Bay Area.
The case is Sorihin and Abdul Fatah v. Thoai Van Nguyen dba Sea Queen II, Case No. 16-5422, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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Pfizer Inc. and generic-drug maker Ranbaxy Inc. have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the Third Circuit to revive allegations in multidistrict litigation accusing Pfizer of making an illegal reverse payment to keep Ranbaxy’s generic version of cholesterol drug Lipitor off the market, saying antitrust scrutiny isn’t appropriate for “commonplace” and “traditional” settlements such as the one at issue.
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The Lipitor buyers who brought the MDL have alleged that Pfizer kept generic drugmaker Ranbaxy out of the market for Lipitor with an anti-competitive settlement in 2008. Ranbaxy agreed to delay its generic version of Lipitor until 2011 in exchange for Pfizer dropping its litigation over a different drug, Pfizer’s blood pressure medication Accupril, the buyers said.
The buyers alleged the release of the Accupril claims qualifies as a “large” and “unjustified” reverse payment because it allowed Ranbaxy to escape costly litigation while keeping the company out of the generic market, the filing says.
Cohen Milstein is Co-Lead Counsel of a proposed class of indirect purchasers in In re Lipitor Antitrust Litigation.
Concern over GenX and its presence in Wilmington’s main drinking water source, the Cape Fear River, has given way to another pair of class actions.
Earlier this month, The Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, based in Durham, along with The Hannon Law Firm of Denver, filed a first class action against DuPont and its spinout, Chemours, over the release of toxic chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River.
While the first class action was filed on behalf of class members who are serviced by the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA), the second shows an even farther reach of impact, filed on behalf of class members serviced by the Brunswick County Northwest Water Treatment Plant (NWWTP). The first class potentially amounts to 100,000 or more members, and the other potentially amounts to 30,000 or more members.
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Now, in addition to those two class actions, national plaintiffs firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, which recently opened an office in Raleigh, along with litigation boutique Susman Godfrey, are heading the charge on another class action filed against DuPont and Chemours.
“This is an area of litigation that has been of great importance to our firm,” says former North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Martha Geer of Cohen Milstein. Ted Leopold of Cohen Milstein, co-counsel for the plaintiff in the suit, is also co-lead counsel in a class action filed on behalf of residents of Flint, Michigan, against Gov. Rick Snyder, local government officials, the city of Flint and a group of engineering companies over contamination of the city’s water supply.
As in Flint, the litigation has been about toxins in drinking water that become part of plumbing systems and are very difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate, says Geer. Along with Cohen Milstein and Susman Godfrey, The Dedendum Group, out of Illinois, and Raleigh’s Whiteman Law Firm are representing the plaintiff and members in the class action.
Unlike other national plaintiffs firms, Cohen Milstein’s new Raleigh office plants the resources of its national bench in close proximity to the issues at hand.
Lumber Liquidators has agreed to a $36 million settlement to resolve claims brought on behalf of people who bought Chinese-manufactured laminate flooring reported to contain unsafe levels of formaldehyde.
The Virginia-based company said Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding to settle all claims in two class-action lawsuits filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Lumber Liquidators will pay $22 million in cash and provide $14 million in store-credit vouchers to consumers who bought the flooring between January 2009 and May 2015, when it stopped selling the product, the company said in a statement.
The agreement still needs approvals from the court and the company’s board.
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Steven Toll, one of three attorneys appointed by the court to represent the plaintiffs in the multi-district litigation, said the proposed settlement would resolve claims by anyone who purchased the flooring. He said Lumber Liquidators has estimated that more than 700,000 people bought the product, but it is unclear how many of them will file claims under the settlement.
The lawsuits were filed after a March 2015 segment on “60 Minutes” reporting that laminate flooring made in China had illegal levels of formaldehyde. Exposure to high levels can cause respiratory problems and irritation of the eyes, nose and throat. It can also increase a person’s risk of developing cancer.
“We think consumers will get a good value by getting cash or store vouchers to buy other products from Lumber Liquidators,” Toll said.
Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc. moved closer Tuesday to resolve class-action lawsuits concerning the safety of Chinese-made flooring that has tangled the company in litigation for over two years.
The specialty flooring retailer entered a memorandum of understanding with a group of law firms led by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC to settle allegations that it sold laminate flooring manufactured in China that contained levels of formaldehyde that exceeded state emissions standards.
Under the terms of the proposed agreement the company will pay out $22 million in case and offer $14 million in store credit to customers who bought the relevant flooring.
“We think it’s a real value to the consumers,” said Steven Toll managing partner of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. He highlighted that giving customers the option to receive a voucher to replace their floors may be a better value than a cash settlement in some cases.
A judge is likely to approve the settlement by early March with claims to be paid out starting in the summer, Mr. Toll said.
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Lumber Liquidators found itself under public scrutiny after a “60 Minutes” segment on CBS accused the floor maker of selling Chinese-made laminate flooring that contained levels of formaldehyde that exceeded California emissions standards.
The web of litigation surrounding President Donald Trump’s decision to end a program protecting certain children of undocumented immigrants from deportation is swelling rapidly, with two new lawsuits filed Monday.
Legal legends are behind the two latest suits. One, in a Washington, D.C., federal court, was brought by the NAACP with the help of plaintiffs’ giant Joseph Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. Another, in the federal district court for northern California, was brought on behalf of immigrant children themselves. They are represented by Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Ted Boutrous, as well as several other prominent scholars and lawyers.
In these and other lawsuits related to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which have been filed on a rolling basis since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the rescission of the program Sept. 5, the legal theories are quite similar. Most feature a mix of constitutional claims and charges of violations of administrative law, though the plaintiffs and their standing claims may vary widely.
“The fact that there are similar claims in these cases … is a reflection perhaps that great minds think alike,” Sellers said. “[The DACA lawsuits] all seem to focus on the same conduct and I think reflect genuine and strong concern from different segments of our society.”
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Face Antitrust Allegations
NEW YORK—Several of the world’s largest investment banks have colluded, in violation of federal antitrust laws, to create and maintain exclusive control of the more than $1 trillion stock loan market, reaping massive profits at the expense of investors, according to three public employees’ pension funds which today filed a federal class action lawsuit. The suit alleges that since at least 2009, six of the world’s largest investment banks—Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS—have illegally conspired to overcharge investors and maintain the power they hold over the stock loan market, obstructing multiple efforts to create competitive electronic exchanges that would benefit both stock lenders and borrowers.
The stock loan market is a critical component of a strong economy, enabling trading activities like short selling and hedging while also ensuring that financial systems operate efficiently. The plaintiffs in today’s suit—Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS), Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS) and Sonoma County Employees Retirement Association (SERA)—claim that investors who borrowed and lent stock through the stock lending market were and are being harmed because six investment banks took collective, illegal action to boycott, attack and acquire multiple entities who tried to increase competition and lower costs in the stock loan market.
“Major investment banks are conspiring to preserve their profits at the expense of everyday investors,” said Michael B. Eisenkraft, plaintiffs’ attorney and a Partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. “Through various improper means, the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have for years colluded to maintain their power over this little-known-but-lucrative corner of Wall Street. In doing so, they deprive investors of money that should flow to retirees, families and other hard-working Americans.”
The banks named as defendants in this suit routinely took steps together to block the development of competitive exchange platforms like AQS (in the United States) and SL-x (in Europe) and the impact of government regulatory reforms. For example:
- When the investments banks learned that Bank of New York was using AQS for stock loan transactions, Goldman Sachs threatened to return billions in collateral and never do business with BONY again. BONY promptly abandoned its plans. Various defendants took similar steps with well-known hedge funds too, including SAC Capital, Renaissance Capital, and others – telling them they would not connect them to an AQS, and, if they did not like it, they could take their business elsewhere.
- As AQS’s executives made the rounds of the stock lending industry and meeting with the organizations that would be part of the re-engineering of critical market infrastructure, one such institution openly stated that the AQS plan, “[sounded] great, but who’s going to start [your] car in the morning?”
- When SL-x met with two Goldman Sachs executives to introduce them to an emerging product – one which would have threatened Defendants’ dominance of the stock loan market – the Goldman executives were frank: if they were to allow a central trading platform with counterparty clearing, it would encourage other competitors to enter the stock lending market. “I ain’t supporting this,” said Goldman Sachs Managing Director William Conley. “You ain’t going to get this done,” echoed Brad Levy, then Global Head of Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investments Group.
Stock lending involves the temporary transfer of a stock from one investor to another, typically from large institutional investors who hold large amounts of publicly-traded securities (pension funds, mutual funds, university endowments, etc.) to entities who want to sell stock short. It is a common practice that helps both the borrowers and lenders of stock generate additional income in their portfolios.
The stock loan market has not kept pace with the technological progress that has improved other financial markets. Stock lending remains an opaque, over-the-counter (OTC) trading market in which there is no central marketplace for stock borrowers and lenders to trade directly with one another or see real-time pricing that could help secure better financial terms. Instead, stock lenders and borrowers must transact through intermediaries, also known as “prime brokers,” who take a massive cut of nearly every stock loan transaction. The six investment banks named in today’s lawsuit are the dominant prime brokers in the U.S., effectively controlling the stock loan market and gobbling up approximately 60 percent of the revenues.
Julie G. Reiser, plaintiffs’ attorney and Partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, noted: “This case is potentially of historic importance as it offers a chance to reform an entire area of the financial markets.”
This suit alleges that, in order to protect their profits, these large investment banks have been conspiring since at least 2009 through a company called EquiLend, which they control, to prevent participants from accessing marketplaces where they could benefit from direct, all-to-all trading and thereby secure themselves the best prices. (All-to-all trading means that stock lenders can offer a stock to every other stock borrower in the market and select the best price.) Denying others this level of access forces trades in the market to go through their prime brokers, which is how the banks are able to reap tremendous financial benefit. In 2016, for example, these six institutions skimmed approximately 60 percent of the $9.15 billion in stock lending revenue alone, despite performing a service for which they bear virtually no risk. Any other arrangement would have substantially reduced the need for their services, and the premiums that they charge would have been untenable.
The coordinated effort by the prime brokers to stymie their competition in the stock lending market took numerous forms. After boycotting securities lending participants who participated on other platforms —AQS in the U.S. and SL-x in Europe—the banks either purchased the intellectual property underlying those exchanges (SL-x) or the exchange itself (AQS), effectively shelving the efforts to improve stock lending for investors. The purchase of AQS by bank-controlled EquiLend, which the last piece of the conspiratorial puzzle as it gave Defendants complete control over all gateways to central clearing in the U.S., even had a secret code name at Morgan Stanley – Project Gateway.
The case was filed today in the Southern District Court of New York by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. It alleges violation of the antitrust laws and Unjust Enrichment under New York law and seeks treble damages and injunctive relief.
The complaint can be accessed here.
About Cohen Milstein
Founded in 1969, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is a national leader in plaintiff class action lawsuits and litigation. As one of the premier firms in the country handling major complex cases, Cohen Milstein, with 90 attorneys, has offices in Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and Raleigh, N.C. For more information, visit https://www.cohenmilstein.com or call (212) 838-7797.
Media Inquiries
Three public pension funds claim in a federal class-action lawsuit filed Thursday that six major investment banks colluded to overcharge investors and maintain control of the $1.72 trillion stock loan market, according to a court document.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York by the $28.5 billion Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, Des Moines; $14.2 billion Orange County Employees Retirement System, Santa Ana; and $2.5 billion Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association, Santa Rosa, Calif.
The suit accuses Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS of violating antitrust law by conspiring to overcharge investors and obstructing efforts to create competitive electronic exchanges, according to the documents.
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The law firms of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan represent the pension funds.
Washington, D.C. — To protect the rights of workers, the Impact Fund has teamed up with leading civil rights law firms, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) and Cohen Milstein, to file an amicus brief on behalf of more than thirty civil rights organizations from across the country in a trio of cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“What’s at stake is the right of workers to bond together to hold employers accountable for systemic discrimination,” said Impact Fund executive director, Jocelyn Larkin, adding: “There has been a disturbing trend in recent years for employers to evade their responsibilities by requiring those that work for them to waive their legal right to join together with co-workers to challenge discrimination.”
The cases address the question of whether employment agreements that prevent workers from taking “concerted” action to challenge workplace violations conflict with protections in federal labor law. Such agreements undermine the fight for civil rights.
“Workers have to be able to come together to bring disparate impact and pattern or practice claims,” said Raymond Audain, Senior Counsel at LDF and counsel of record on the brief, adding: “In most individual cases, employees are denied access to the information necessary to show widespread discrimination.”
“Had the arbitration clauses at issue before the Supreme Court been in effect before, more than 120 important civil rights cases, listed in this brief, would have never been brought,” said Joseph Sellers, chair of the Civil Rights & Employment practice group at Cohen Milstein. Joining the brief are more than thirty non-profits from around the country who use litigation to fight discrimination against racial minorities, women, seniors, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ communities.
The Supreme Court will review the 9th Circuit’s decision involving Ernst & Young and the 7th Circuit’s ruling involving Epic Systems Corp. It will also consider the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit’s judgment enforcing Murphy Oil USA Inc.’s waiver, which was challenged by the National Labor Relations Board.
The cases are Epic Systems v. Lewis, 16-285; Ernst & Young v. Morris, 16-300; and NLRB v. Murphy Oil, 16-307.
“If employers can preclude workers from acting together in every forum, they can—and will—effectively extinguish the civil rights claims of the most vulnerable members of the workforce,” concluded Larkin.
About The Impact Fund
The Impact Fund was founded in December 1992, to help advance economic, environmental, racial and/or social justice through the courts. Originally envisioned as a purely grant making organization, the Impact Fund has made more than 600 grants totaling just over $6M. Click here for Grant Criteria and information about Grant Deadlines. Since its inception, the Impact Fund has grown to include both advocacy and education in its range of services. Today, the Impact Fund litigates a small number of cases directly, authors amicus briefs, provides a substantial amount of pro-bono consulting and presents an annual conference for plaintiff-side class action practitioners, a training institute for emerging public interest law practitioners, and numerous seminars and webinars. In short, the Impact Fund is a national clearinghouse for public interest impact litigation. Click here for the 2016 Annual Report. https://www.impactfund.org
About The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. https://www.naacpldf.org
About Cohen Milstein
For over 45 years, Cohen Milstein has fought corporate abuse, pursuing litigation on behalf of affected individuals, whistleblowers, public entities and other institutions in cases that have raised challenging, significant and often novel issues. The firm specializes in holding large corporations accountable for their actions even though they often have significantly more resources than those damaged by their misconduct. Often, this is accomplished by bringing large numbers of plaintiffs together in a single class to enhance their ability to litigate effectively. One of the premier firms in the country handling major complex plaintiff-side litigation, Cohen Milstein has over 90 attorneys in offices in Washington, DC; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; Raleigh, NC; and Palm Beach Gardens, FL. https://www.cohenmilstein.com/
ENDS
For more information and photography, contact:
Teddy Basham-Witherington 415.845.1206 / twitherington@impactfund.org
On rehearing, a split en banc Eighth Circuit on Friday reversed a prior panel ruling and revived direct purchasers’ antitrust claims against distributors of pre-filled propane tanks, ruling that the purchasers properly alleged an ongoing antitrust violation that restarts the statute of limitations clock.
In a published 5-4 decision, the appeals court found that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in Klehr v. A.O. Smith Corp. set a precedent that each new sale to plaintiffs in a price-fixing conspiracy suit constitutes an overt act that restarts the statute of limitations.
In support of its finding that Klehr establishes that precedent, the majority opinion pointed to rulings by the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth and Eleventh circuits it said all cite Klehr when ruling that the clock resets when sales are made in a price-fixing conspiracy.
The majority opinion also found that the direct purchasers have properly alleged all three necessary elements of a claim for continued violation that is sufficient to restart the statute of limitations. A price-fixing conspiracy that continued into the alleged class period was also properly alleged, the opinion said.