Steven B. Singer

Preparing a Record for Resolution

Singer’s WorldCom and Bank of America teams prepared on the assumption that trial could occur. They identified witnesses, authenticated documents, developed expert testimony, assembled classwide proof, and worked through expected defenses under the rules of evidence. WorldCom crossed accounting, underwriting, analyst, and public-disclosure evidence; Bank of America required a comparable system around a merger negotiated during the financial crisis.

WorldCom and a Live Jury Trial

WorldCom announced in 2002 that it would restate billions of dollars in expenses and soon entered bankruptcy. The consolidated securities litigation involved stock and bond purchasers, former officers, directors, underwriters, an auditor, and research analysts.

Singer served in a lead trial role for the class plaintiff. He helped coordinate the representative class with individual investor actions and carried the accounting, offering, underwriting, analyst, disclosure, and damages record into a live jury trial.

The coordinated record also had to account for Securities Act and Exchange Act claims and bankruptcy jurisdiction while the representative class and parallel investor actions followed different procedural paths.

His courtroom work included witness preparation and examination, exhibits, accounting proof, offering evidence, expert testimony, and the factual propositions placed before the jury.

The jury presentation reduced the corporate collapse to propositions the factfinders could decide: what the financial statements communicated, who bore responsibility for particular offerings or statements, what diligence occurred, and how loss was measured.

The matter required the trial team to organize a large corporate and financial record into statement-specific and offering-specific proof that could be presented under the rules of evidence.

The WorldCom litigation ultimately produced settlements totaling more than $6 billion after a four-week jury trial, placing Singer’s trial work inside one of the field’s largest investor recoveries.

Bank of America: $2.425 Billion

The Bank of America litigation arose from its acquisition of Merrill Lynch during the 2008 financial crisis. Investors alleged that proxy and related disclosures omitted material information about Merrill’s financial condition, executive bonuses, and events surrounding the closing.

The district court certified classes including voting stockholders and purchasers of specified securities. Singer led the investor-side litigation and filed a detailed summary-judgment record as the case approached trial.

The record included merger documents, witness testimony, expert analysis, classwide proof, and the evidentiary materials needed for the scheduled trial.

That preparation gave the public-pension plaintiffs a concrete trial alternative when they evaluated the proposed settlement.

The parties agreed to a $2.425 billion cash settlement shortly before trial together with specified governance measures. The district court approved the resolution in 2013, and the Second Circuit later affirmed final approval against challenges concerning notice, allocation, and settlement administration.

Goldman Sachs: $79.5 Million and Governance Measures

The Goldman Sachs derivative litigation concerned the 1MDB scandal and alleged oversight and disclosure failures by current and former directors and officers. Fulton County Employees’ Retirement System sued on Goldman’s behalf, and Singer led the investor-side litigation.

The action sought corporate relief through fiduciary-duty and federal proxy claims. The resolution secured a $79.5 million cash payment to Goldman together with governance measures.

After notice and a final hearing, the Southern District of New York entered judgment on January 20, 2023, approving the terms and dismissing the action.

Because the case was derivative, Goldman received the principal monetary and governance relief secured through the pension fund’s representative action.

Singer’s work kept the representative pension fund’s authority and Goldman’s corporate rights distinct as the monetary and governance relief moved through notice, hearing, and judicial approval.

His derivative work also includes the FirstEnergy shareholder action, which produced a $180 million recovery together with governance reforms for the company.

Wells Fargo: $240 Million and Governance Reforms

Singer led Saxena White’s team in derivative litigation arising from unauthorized customer accounts and related oversight failures at Wells Fargo.

The case developed evidence concerning board reporting, management escalation, regulatory interactions, corporate responses, and the consequences of the alleged misconduct.

The federal court approved a settlement providing a $240 million insurer-funded cash payment to Wells Fargo and extensive governance measures. The terms addressed corporate reporting, accountability, and board responsibilities through an enforceable derivative resolution.

The governance terms had to be specific enough to administer and tied to the evidence developed about reporting, escalation, regulatory contact, and board responsibility. That connection made the reforms part of the derivative resolution rather than generic promises.

The settlement delivered both corporate cash and operating reforms grounded in the oversight record developed in the action.

Trial and Derivative Practice

Singer is Director of Litigation at Saxena White. He has more than thirty years of experience in securities class actions, trials, settlements, and shareholder derivative litigation.

His principal matters include a live jury trial, an eve-of-trial class settlement, appellate defense of final approval, and derivative proceedings producing cash and governance relief for corporations.

Other securities matters in which Singer served as lead counsel produced settlements including Citigroup ($730 million), Lucent Technologies ($675 million), Mills Corp. ($203 million), WellCare Health Plans ($200 million), Bank of New York Mellon ($180 million), Satyam Computer Services ($150 million), JP Morgan Chase ($150 million), and Biovail ($138 million).

His work has included discovery systems, witness and exhibit preparation, expert proof, motion practice, trial presentation, negotiation, and judicial approval.

For public-pension clients, that preparation also supports settlement governance. Counsel can identify the claims preserved, evidence developed, expert work completed, expected timetable, and the mechanics of a proposed class or corporate remedy before trustees authorize a resolution.

He earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law.