Rebecca M. Katz
Rebecca M. Katz is recognized as a leading lawyer in securities litigation in the Fall 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions of New York Super Lawyers, and in the 2011 Super Lawyers Business Edition in the litigation practice area for her work in securities litigation. She was also recommended in The Legal 500 in 2010. She has lectured on issues involving securities and class action litigation. Ms. Katz is a former senior counsel in the Enforcement Division of the SEC, where she prosecuted major securities cases involving insider trading, market manipulation, and accounting fraud. In addition, Ms. Katz is one of the Firm’s partners leading qui tam/whistleblower litigation.
Since joining the Firm in 2001, Ms. Katz has supervised the day-to-day management of a number of significant cases in which the Firm represents institutional or individual investors. For example, Ms. Katz serves on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in In re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation, No. 21-MC-92 (S.D.N.Y.), a case which involved over 300 coordinated actions, and settled for $586 million. In that capacity, Ms. Katz supervised attorneys and legal professionals from more than twenty law firms in the discovery process and the day-to-day management of the litigation. Ms. Katz is also the partner responsible for the day-to-day supervision of In re Fannie Mae Securities Litigation, No. 04-CV-1639 (D.D.C.), a securities class action alleging that Fannie Mae and its three most senior corporate officers intentionally and pervasively misapplied U.S. accounting rules and engaged in other misconduct over a four-year period. In addition, Ms. Katz is currently managing an individual action brought by the Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico against, among others, Wells Fargo & Company, for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty related to a securities lending agreement and investments made in structured investment vehicles, or “SIVs.”
In addition to representing investors in litigation, Ms. Katz is also supervising Republic of Iraq v. ABB AG, No. 08-CV-5951 (S.D.N.Y.), a suit brought on behalf of the Republic of Iraq and the Iraqi people over the corruption of the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food Programme, which allowed the Hussein Regime to sell Iraqi oil to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people, described as the largest financial and political fraud in history.
Ms. Katz is a frequent speaker in the areas of securities litigation and complex and class action litigation. She was a faculty member at Practising Law Institute’s Securities Litigation & Enforcement Institute, both in 2008 and 2009, addressing such issues as the meaning of the subprime crisis for securities litigation and the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions on securities law. Ms. Katz has also lectured at the Fordham University School of Law’s Eugene P. and Delia S. Murphy Conference on Corporate Law – Corporations, Investors, and the Securities Markets. She authored the articles “Plaintiffs’ Perspective: The SEC’s Final Rules for Whistleblowers Offer a Balanced Approach to an Important New Program,” Securities Litigation Report (with Associate James M. Weir), July/August 2011; and “The Dodd-Frank Act: New Life for Whistleblowers and the SEC,” Securities Litigation Report (with Associate David B. Harrison), September 2010.
Ms. Katz received her law degree from Hofstra University School of Law, where she was a member of the Hofstra Law Review. She is admitted to the New York State Bar and to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Ms. Katz is also a member of the Securities Litigation Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
