In the week of January 10, 2005, over 40 mutual funds were sued by shareholders for allegedly failing to file class action claims in order to recover settlement money to which the funds’ shareholders were entitled.

Some of the funds included in the suit may have filed their claims but many probably did not. Courts have not yet determined whether mutual funds have a fiduciary duty to file class action claims. However, if the Courts do find that mutual funds breached their duty to the funds’ shareholders, the funds could be subjected to substantial liability.

In the past, many mutual funds concluded that the work in tracking numerous cases, compiling voluminous data and filing the claims was not worth the amount of potential recoveries. The rash of large cases such as Worldcom, Lucent and Enron along with hundreds of other settlements has created several billion dollars in settlement funds. This increase in potential recoveries combined with the fear of being subjected to lawsuits for non-filing should compel mutual funds to reexamine their claim filing policies.

Claims Compensation Bureau (“CCB”) has been filing class action claims for their institutional client base since 1996. CCB offers comprehensive class action services to the mutual fund industry. Please contact us for additional information about both our ongoing claims filing services as well as our retroactive claims services.