Overview

James McGovern advises leading pension funds and other institutional investors on issues related to corporate fraud in domestic and international securities markets. His work focuses primarily on securities litigation and corporate governance, representing Taft-Hartley, public pension funds, and other institutional investors across the country in domestic securities actions. He also advises clients as to their potential claims tied to securities-related actions in foreign jurisdictions.

James has worked on a number of large securities class action matters, including In re Worldcom, Inc. Securities Litigation, the second-largest securities class action settlement since the passage of the PSLRA ($6.1 billion recovery); In re Parmalat Securities Litigation ($90 million recovery); In re American Home Mortgage Securities Litigation (amount of the opt-out client’s recovery is confidential); In re The Bancorp Inc. Securities Litigation ($17.5 million recovery); In re Pozen Securities Litigation ($11.2 million recovery); In re Cabletron Systems, Inc. Securities Litigation ($10.5 million settlement); and In re UICI Securities Litigation ($6.5 million recovery).

In the corporate governance arena, James helped bring claims against Abbott Laboratories’ directors, on account of their mismanagement and breach of fiduciary duties for allowing the company to engage in a 10-year off-label marketing scheme. Upon settlement of this action, the company agreed to implement sweeping corporate governance reforms, including an extensive compensation clawback provision going beyond the requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Following the unprecedented takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the federal government in 2008, James was retained by a group of individual and institutional investors to seek recovery of the massive losses they had incurred when the value of their shares in these companies was essentially destroyed. He brought and continues to litigate a complex takings class action against the federal government for depriving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders of their property interests in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and causing damages in the tens of billions of dollars.

James also has addressed members of several public pension associations, including the Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems and the Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems, where he discussed how institutional investors could guard their assets against the risks of corporate fraud and poor corporate governance.

Prior to focusing his practice on plaintiffs securities litigation, James was an attorney at Latham & Watkins where he worked on complex litigation and FIFRA arbitrations, as well as matters relating to corporate bankruptcy and project finance. At that time, he co-authored two articles on issues related to bankruptcy filings: Special Issues In Partnership and Limited Liability Company Bankruptcies and When Things Go Bad: The Ramifications of a Bankruptcy Filing.

James earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center. He received his B.A. and M.B.A. from American University, where he was awarded a Presidential Scholarship and graduated with high honors.