James A. Harrod

From George Washington to Investor Litigation

Harrod was a student at George Washington University Law School when a corporations class helped fix the direction of his career: litigation offered a way to challenge corporate misconduct on behalf of investors rather than address it only through regulation or internal governance.

A Skidmore College graduate, he clerked at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, where the work exposed him to the consequences for workers and pension beneficiaries when companies fail. He then spent fourteen years at Wolf Popper, rising to partner, before joining Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. Across more than twenty-five years of complex federal litigation, his investor representations have produced more than $3 billion in recoveries.

One issuer, two markets

Perrigo traded on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Investors challenged statements made during the company’s resistance to Mylan’s takeover effort and later developments involving Omega Pharma and generic-drug pricing. Harrod led the securities case for the plaintiffs.

Before the classes could be framed, Harrod’s team sorted account records by market and period so each transaction could be tied to the governing law. That classification shaped the class definitions later presented to the court.

The federal court certified a class of New York purchasers asserting U.S. claims and a class of Tel Aviv purchasers proceeding under Israeli law. Israel’s dual-listing framework incorporated U.S. liability standards for the securities at issue, and the court exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the connected Israeli-law claims. Harrod’s team pleaded, certified, and preserved each route separately. The proceeding also included investors entitled to tender shares when the offer expired.

Class certification required a record addressing common issues, governing standards, and the manageability of the Israeli-law claims alongside the U.S. claims. The resulting boundaries made clear whose claims would be released, under which law, and for which purchases—details essential to notice and administration.

The parties reached a $97 million cash settlement after years of litigation, and the court granted final approval in September 2024. The certified classes defined the affected purchases and governing law, while the approved plan allowed eligible investors to match transactions to recognized losses through claims administration.

Global monitoring and client advice

Harrod leads BLB&G’s Global Securities and Litigation Monitoring Team. He advises pension funds and other investors whose holdings may span exchanges, accounts, and jurisdictions with different deadlines, opt-in procedures, discovery obligations, and available remedies.

His analysis begins with the security, purchase date, exchange, account, governing law, and available forum. He then compares class participation, foreign collective actions, regulatory distributions, direct claims, and settlement opportunities so that fiduciaries can preserve viable options and document their decisions.

Harrod has more than twenty-five years of complex federal litigation experience and previously practiced at Wolf Popper. He also speaks with public-pension trustees about fiduciary duties, securities-law developments, and financial markets.

He also teaches and speaks on securities litigation and institutional-investor responsibilities through programs including PLI and Columbia Law School.

Equifax and cybersecurity disclosure

In the Equifax securities litigation, Harrod served as lead counsel for German asset manager Union Asset Management. The case arose from the company’s 2017 data breach and challenged public statements concerning cybersecurity and the breach chronology.

Harrod’s team connected technical events involving access controls, incident response, patching, and internal escalation with the securities-law questions of what was stated, whether it was misleading, what the company knew, and how later disclosures affected market price. The resulting agreement reached more than 185,000 class members through a court-supervised recovery process.

The team sequenced the intrusion, the public statements, discovery of the breach, later announcements, and market movement so each event could be evaluated against the distinct elements of the securities claim.

The lead plaintiff’s foreign identity did not make its New York Stock Exchange transactions foreign. The case required Harrod to distinguish investor domicile, issuer domicile, exchange, transaction, and governing law when defining the available federal claim.

Volkswagen across proceedings

Harrod served as lead counsel in Volkswagen litigation concerning statements about clean-diesel vehicles. His work included international discovery, foreign jurisdictional issues, and coordination with overlapping European proceedings. The matter produced a settlement equal to the damages claimed for the represented investors.

The work required Harrod to use material developed across regulatory, criminal, consumer, and investor proceedings while keeping his clients’ securities theory and remedies distinct. His team determined which foreign evidence could be obtained and how it fit the claims pursued for the represented investors.

Structured Alpha

When Allianz-managed Structured Alpha funds collapsed at the start of the pandemic, the losses fell on pension funds and other investors that had invested in a strategy presented as hedged. Harrod’s team represented thirty-five clients through separate civil actions while the SEC and Justice Department pursued public enforcement based on the same underlying events.

In the Allianz Structured Alpha litigation, Harrod helped lead the representation of 35 clients through transaction-specific pleadings, discovery, loss analysis, and negotiated resolutions. The team recovered more than $2 billion for those clients. BLB&G pursued separate civil actions while the SEC and Justice Department conducted public enforcement, requiring the team to preserve each client’s agreements, investment history, losses, and remedies within a common factual investigation.

Mortgage-Backed Securities

Harrod’s residential mortgage-backed securities work included leading the Bear Stearns mortgage pass-through action, which recovered $500 million, and serving as co-lead counsel in a JPMorgan acceptance-corporation action, which recovered $280 million. In each matter, the purchased certificates and offering documents informed the pleading, class definition, discovery, expert analysis, and allocation.

From transaction map to recovery

In Perrigo, Equifax, Volkswagen, Allianz, and mortgage-backed securities matters, Harrod has matched the client’s actual holdings with the governing law, available forum, and evidence required for a supervised recovery.

That approach allows a fiduciary to decide whether to file, join, opt out, submit a claim, monitor further, or decline action while deadlines remain open and the relevant transaction record is available.