Barbara A. Podell is a shareholder in the Securities practice
group at Berger & Montague. She concentrates her practice on
securities class action litigation.
Ms. Podell was one of the firm's senior attorneys representing
the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System ("SERS") as the
lead plaintiff in the In
re CIGNA Corp. Sec. Litig., No. 02-CV-8088 (E.D. Pa.), a
federal securities fraud class action in which SERS moved for, and
was appointed, lead plaintiff. CIGNA allegedly concealed crucial
operational problems, which, once revealed, caused the company's
stock price to fall precipitously. The firm obtained a $93 million
settlement. This was a remarkable recovery because there were no
accounting restatements, government investigations, typical
indicators of financial fraud, or insider trading. Moreover, the
case was settled on the eve of trial (22.7% of losses
recovered).
Before joining Berger & Montague, Ms. Podell was a founding
member of Savett Frutkin Podell & Ryan, P.C., and before that,
a shareholder at Kohn, Savett, Klein & Graf and an associate at
Dechert LLP, all in Philadelphia.
Prominent Judgments & Settlements
- In re Cigna Corp.
Sec. Litig. ($93 million settlement)
- Aetna ($81.5 million settlement) (Savett Frutkin)
- In re Toll Bros. Sec. Litig. ($25 million
settlement)
- In re Cryolife Sec. Litig. ($23.5 million
settlment)
- In re Fifth Third Securities Litigation ($16 million
settlement)
- In re Viropharma Sec. Litig. ($9 million
settlement)
- In re
Hemispherx Biopharma Sec. Litig. ($3.6 million
settlement)