在一家资产达40亿美元的美国对冲基金公司工作的三年中，一名律师一直把钱留在桌子上。他回忆说，他曾收到许多表格，邀请他就已解决的针对上市公司的集体诉讼提起索赔，但他常常忽略这些表格。“大多数对冲基金不会自己提交这些文件，”这位律师在谈到这些文件时表示。“这几乎就像一份全职工作。”当这位律师考虑出售债权时，投标者向他报了低价。但随后他接到了新泽西州老桥市液体索赔公司(Liquid Claims)的电话，该公司表示愿意代表他提出索赔。他同意了，认为自己不会有什么损失:像Liquid Claims这样的公司不收取预付费用，但会从任何成功的索赔中抽取30%左右的提成。20万至80万美元的支票开始寄到他的邮箱。养老基金、对冲基金和其他投资者因未能提交此类索赔而损失惨重。Liquid Claims指出，在过去五年中，美国法院已从证券欺诈诉讼中发放了420亿美元的赔偿。 And thanks to the near-collapse of the financial industry in 2007 and 2008, awards could total tens of billions of dollars over the next half decade. “We’re on the verge of a new wave of very large settlements,” says Brad Heffler, president of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based Claims Compensation Bureau and an industry pioneer. Roughly 200 settlements are active at any given time, notes Mark Donaldson, founder and managing director of Battea-Class Action Services, which counts some 250 hedge funds among its 300-plus customers. Since Donaldson launched his San Francisco-based shop in 2001, the average check has been about $4,500, though payment can range from $10 to $100,000. Because they didn’t file, more than 60 percent of eligible claimants effectively gave other people the money due to them over the past five years, according to Liquid Claims. “Whether they manage $100 million or $100 billion, many firms are not doing the due diligence in terms of seeking information to keep up with their eligibility,” says founder and managing partner Luis Davila. “[They’re] leaving money on the table due to the lack of controls and processes necessary to ensure optimal class-action eligibility notification and filing procedures.” To determine if a client is eligible for settlements, claims administrators use software and staff to match the firm’s trading history against different class-action periods. The court-appointed company that oversees payment for each settlement must sift through tens or hundreds of thousands of claim forms to confirm eligibility, so distributions last 12 to 36 months. Payouts for multibillion-dollar awards can take longer. However, there’s no hard deadline for claims. “Most courts accept late-filed claims up to the time they finish their work,” says Michael Rosenbaum, managing director of Jericho, New York-based Berdon Claims Administration, which fulfills class-action and bankruptcy claims. It’s even possible to make a claim after the first distribution given that some checks don’t get cashed. “The courts want to see the claimants receive their money,” says Claims Compensation Bureau’s Heffler. His firm and its rivals are gearing up for the next big wave of payouts. Heffler, whose client base manages more than $500 billion, notes that there have already been about $9 billion worth of settlements related to lawsuits over mortgage-backed securities. These include the $8.5 billion payment agreed to by Bank of America Corp. for dud mortgage bonds issued by Countrywide Financial Corp., which BofA acquired in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
随着加拿大、澳大利亚和其他国家开始允许此类案件通过其法律体系进行审理，索赔业务也在走向国际。Battea的唐纳森表示:“如果你是小池塘里的一条大鱼，而其他人没有申报，你可能会一下子得到一大笔钱。”••