Susan Banks is a staff attorney at Cohen Milstein and a member of the Antitrust practice. In this role, she assists in discovery and evidentiary-related aspects of litigation and deposition preparation. 

Susan brings to bear extensive discovery experience, having worked as a discovery attorney with several renowned defense firms prior to joining Cohen Milstein. Susan was also the Founder and Director of The Socratic School of Language in Washington, D.C. where she created and administered a multilingual language curriculum and innovative afterschool programming in partnership with public, private, and charter school networks. 

Carol V. Gilden, a partner in the Securities Litigation & Investor Protection practice, is a nationally recognized securities litigator and a tenacious advocate for her clients, which include public pension funds, Taft-Hartley pension and health and welfare funds, and other institutional investors. She litigates securities class actions, individual actions, transaction and derivative litigation, and other types of complex litigation and class actions nationwide in state and federal courts. Carol’s experience includes cases involving stock, bonds, preferred stock, ADRs, and other complex financial instruments, including interest rate swaps, Treasury bonds and exchange-traded notes. 

Carol has litigated some of the most novel securities disputes in the financial markets, resulting in aggregate recoveries of several billion dollars for investors. Her guiding principle – those who commit fraud on the financial markets should be held accountable. 

Carol has led the litigation as Lead or Co-Lead Counsel in numerous high-profile securities cases, including: 

• Co-Lead Counsel in MF Global, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that companies that make false or misleading statements cannot hide behind risk disclosures to escape liability.  
• Lead Counsel in the IntraLinks Securities Litigation, which, as one of the first securities class actions certified after the Supreme Court’s Halliburton II decision, provided a roadmap for obtaining class certification in other securities cases. 
• Lead Counsel in Seafarers Pension Plan v. Bradway, et al., a federal derivative case against The Boeing Company’s directors and officers arising out of the 737 MAX crashes and alleging federal proxy statement violations in connection with director elections. After the case was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, Carol successfully argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, obtaining a 2-to1, precedent-setting decision reversing the district court’s dismissal based on enforcement of Boeing’s forum selection bylaw. The derivative action ultimately settled, along with a companion class action by the Seafarers in Delaware Chancery Court challenging the bylaw under Delaware law after the district court’s dismissal, for corporate governance reforms valued more than $100 million and a $6.25 million payment by the directors’ insurers to the company.

Carol is currently serving as Co-Lead Counsel in In re FMC Corporation Securities Litigation, a securities fraud class action against FMC, a global manufacturer of pesticides and crop protection products, related to a fraudulent global channel stuffing scheme. She also serves as Lead Counsel in the Abbott Derivative Litigation involving the manufacture and sale of allegedly contaminated infant formula products, which led to a product recall and infant formula shortage, nationwide. Carol is also representing investors in a securities fraud class action against Organon, a pharmaceutical company, for misleading investors regarding one of its leading drugs. (Leadership appointment is pending). Finally, she represents the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund in a shareholder derivative action against the board of directors and senior officers of Live Nation Entertainment, alleging violations of the federal securities laws, insider trading, and breaches of fiduciary duty arising from the Company’s anticompetitive conduct in the live entertainment market, including violations of the antitrust laws and breach of a 2010 DOJ consent decree entered in connection with the Ticketmaster acquisition.

Carol also has served in Executive Committee roles in other high-profile cases, Global Crossing Securities Litigation (settlements of $448 million) and the Merrill Lynch Analyst cases ($125 million settlement), as well as an active litigation team member in the Waste Management Litigation (N.D. Il) ($220 million settlement). Under her leadership, her former firm was an active member of the litigation teams in the AOL Time Warner Securities Litigation ($2.5 billion settlement), CMS Securities Litigation ($200 million settlement) and the Salomon Analyst Litigation/In re AT&T ($75 million settlement). Further, she was lead counsel in an opt-out securities litigation action on behalf of a large group of individual plaintiffs in connection with the McKesson/HBOC merger, Pacha, et al. v. McKesson Corporation, et al., which settled for a substantial, confidential sum.