New York, NY – November 7, 2001 - Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow LLP (GLRS) is pleased to announce the third largest securities fraud settlement in history, a $457 million settlement in In re Waste Management, Inc. Securities Litigation on behalf of Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds.

The case covers securities fraud claims during the Class Period of June 11, 1998 through November 9, 1999 against Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE:WMI) and certain individual defendants. The settlement is subject to certain conditions, including the satisfaction of certain financing conditions and approval by the Court.

The Lead Plaintiff in this case was the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, and this outstanding settlement was achieved through the direct participation of Connecticut Treasurer Denise L. Nappier and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

At this time, the parties are developing a Plan of Allocation to award damages to Class Members. This plan will take into account, among other factors, the factual and legal hurdles facing Class Members who purchased or otherwise acquired Waste Management securities at different times during the Class Period.

In addition to the monetary benefits for class members, Waste Management (the "Company") has agreed to institute certain corporate governance changes designed to increase the role and independence of the Company’s audit committee and to give shareholders greater control over corporate management. For example, members of the audit committee will now be required to be five years removed from employment with the Company rather than the current three years. The Company also agreed to recommend to its shareholders that their entire Board of Directors be elected annually, replacing the current system of staggered terms.

Jonathan M. Plasse, a partner with Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow LLP and leader of the GLRS litigation team, stated, "I believe that the method by which this case was prosecuted and by which this outstanding settlement was achieved only seventeen months after Connecticut was appointed Lead Plaintiff, breaks new ground and can serve as a model for future prosecution and settlement of securities fraud class action cases and perhaps in other major cases as well. What was most significant was the active involvement of both the Connecticut Treasurer Nappier and Attorney General Blumenthal as well as the significant cooperation by top management at Waste Management."

• On May 8, 2000, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas appointed the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds as Lead Plaintiff in this action and its counsel, Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow LLP as Lead Counsel.
• In February 2001 – after the filing of a consolidated, amended complaint and plaintiffs’ opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss – representatives of the Connecticut Attorney General and the Connecticut Treasurer met face to face in Hartford Connecticut with top management from the Company in an effort to resolve the litigation. The parties agreed that if protracted, expensive and risky litigation was to be avoided, the two sides would have to come up with a creative way to allow plaintiffs to properly evaluate their claims even before formal discovery would commence.
  
• Mr. Plasse noted that, "As a direct result of that meeting, defendants agreed to produce, on a confidential basis, hundreds of thousands of relevant documents to plaintiffs’ counsel and their experts so that we could properly evaluate the claims. As a follow up to the document review, defendants also answered numerous questions raised by plaintiffs’ counsel and their experts."
• On August 16, 2001, while this discovery was continuing, the Court issued an Order denying defendants’ motion to dismiss with respect to certain securities fraud claims during the core period of February 25, 1999 through July 13, 1999, and dismissed claims during other time periods, but with leave to replead.
• The parties met in Hartford again, on October 12, 2001. At that time, Connecticut Treasurer Nappier and Attorney General Blumenthal, and Maurice Myers, the Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Company met face-to-face and directly conducted the negotiations that led to this settlement.
• Mr. Plasse, who has been litigating class action securities fraud cases for more than twenty-five years, stated, "I am convinced that the four key factors leading to this early and highly successful resolution of a very complex case were: (1) the presence of an institutional investor with a significant stake in the outcome of the litigation as Lead Plaintiff; (2) the excellent communication between Connecticut and Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow LLP, throughout the litigation; (3) the cooperation of Waste Management in providing us with all the documents and other material that we needed to properly evaluate our claims; and (4) the direct participation by Treasurer Nappier, Attorney General Blumenthal and Maury Myers from Waste Management in the settlement negotiations.
• Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow LLP and Connecticut had negotiated an attorney fee agreement so that the attorneys’ fees in this case will be less than 10% of the Settlement Fund, an amount far below rates traditionally awarded in comparable securities class actions.

For more than 35 years, Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow’s Class Action Litigation Practice Group has successfully litigated and obtained large recoveries on behalf of institutional investors, union health and welfare funds, and individual investors, in major securities fraud class actions around the country.