Merrill Settlement Approved in Biased Research Reports Suits
The lawsuit said that Merrill Lynch and technology analyst Henry Blodget sent out this research during the dot-com boom to garner big investment bank contracts.
The lawsuits were only one of the cases against Merrill that charged such practices. The company agreed earlier this year to pay $39 million to settle three suits brought by mutual fund investors.
The settlement approved Wednesday covered 23 more suits and amounted to $125 million, plus accrued interest.
U.S. District Judge John Keenan awarded the investors lawyers fees amounting to 24% of the settlement fund or nearly $32 million, as well as about $1.4 million in costs and expenses.
According to Reuters, the first of the cases alleged misleading research was brought in 2001 at a time when research practices on Wall Street were under siege.
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