William C. Fredericks

Previously, Mr. Fredericks has represented investors as a lead or co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in dozens of securities class actions, including In re Wachovia Preferred Securities and Bond/Notes Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) (total settlements of $627 million, reflecting the largest recovery ever in a pure Securities Act case not involving any parallel government fraud claims); In re Rite Aid Securities Litigation (E.D. Pa.) (total settlements of $323 million, including the then-second largest securities fraud settlement ever against a Big Four accounting firm); In re Sears Roebuck & Co. Sec. Litigation (N.D. Ill.) ($215 million settlement, representing the then-largest §10(b) class action recovery in an action that did not involve either a financial restatement or parallel government fraud claims); In re State Street Bank and Trust Co. ERISA Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) (one of the largest ERISA class settlements to date); In re King Digital Sec. Enter. PLC Shareholder Litigation (Super. Ct. San Fran. Cty.) ($18.5 million settlement, representing one of the largest state court §11 class action recoveries to date); Irvine v. ImClone Systems, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.) ($75 million §10b settlement); In re Insulet Sec. Litigation (D. Mass) ($19.75 million §10b settlement), and In re LendingClub Sec. Litigation ($125 million §10b and §11 settlement).  A consortium of plaintiffs’ counsel also chose Mr. Fredericks to present the (successful) oral argument in opposition to defendants’ efforts to dismiss (on grounds of standing) over fifteen separate securities fraud cases before a three judge panel in In re Mutual Fund Investing Litigation (see 519 F. Supp. 2d 580 (D. Md. 2007)), which later settled for a combined total of several hundred million dollars.  Mr. Fredericks also played a leading role on the team that obtained a rare 9-0 decision for securities fraud plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court in Merck & Co., Inc. v. Reynolds (which later settled for $1.052 billion), and he has also co-authored amicus briefs on behalf of clients in a number of other Supreme Court cases (including Halliburton, Amgen, ANZ Securities and Cyan) involving various significant securities law issues.

Mr. Fredericks has also represented clients in litigating claims in federal bankruptcy court proceedings, and obtained substantial recoveries from a bankrupt corporation’s officers, law firm and outside auditors on behalf of a court-appointed Trustee of a creditor’s trust.  See In re Friedman’s, Inc., 394 B.R. 623 (S.D. Ga. 2008).  He has also successfully represented a class of large commercial customers of a bankrupt utility in breach of contract proceedings in In re FirstEnergy Corp., which settled in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

At Columbia Law School, Mr. Fredericks was a three-time Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, a Columbia University International Fellow, Articles Editor of The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and winner of Columbia’s Beck Prize (property law), Toppan Prize (advanced constitutional law) and Greenbaum Prize (written advocacy).  A three-judge panel chaired by the late Justice Antonin Scalia also awarded Mr. Fredericks the Thomas E. Dewey Prize for best oral argument in the final round of Columbia’s Stone Moot Court Honor Competition.  After clerking for the Hon. Robert S. Gawthrop III (E.D. Pa.) in Philadelphia, Mr. Fredericks spent seven years practicing securities and complex commercial litigation at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York before moving to the plaintiffs’ side of the bar in 1996.

Mr. Fredericks has been recognized in the 2012-24 editions of “America’s Best Lawyers” in the field of commercial litigation, in “Who’s Who in American Law” (Marquis), and in the New York City “Super Lawyers” listings for securities litigation (2013-24).  In 2020 (inaugural) and in each subsequent year he been named to the LawDragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Attorneys list.  He has been a frequent panelist on various securities litigation programs sponsored by the Practising Law Institute (PLI) – including ten years as a panelist on civil liabilities under the federal Securities Act – and has lectured overseas on American class action litigation on behalf of the American Law Institute/American Bar Association (ALI/ABA).  He is also the former chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Military Affairs and Justice, and a member of the Federal Bar Council.

Associations:

Member of the New York City Bar Association (former chair, Committee on Military Affairs and Justice)

Federal Bar Council

American Bar Association