Pierrick Morel consults on economic, financial, and statistical issues that arise in litigation. Mr. Morel’s primary areas of focus are securities matters and those related to alleged market manipulation, bankruptcy proceedings, and financial institutions. He leads teams and supports clients and experts through all phases of litigation, including discovery, class certification, loss causation, and damages, as well as settlement negotiations. He also has significant trial and arbitration experience.
Securities
Mr. Morel has worked on a variety of complex securities matters, including:
- Analyzing multiple issues related to class certification, such as market efficiency, price impact, and Comcast arguments, and evaluating different situations of potential class members
- Extensive experience analyzing loss causation and damages in securities cases involving Rule 10b-5 and Section 11 claims, including negative causation analysis
- Addressing loss causation and damages issues in a rare shareholder class action that went to trial, Hsu et al. v. Puma Biotechnology Inc. et al.
- Reviewing an underwriter’s due diligence for a follow-on stock offering
Market manipulation
Mr. Morel has worked on matters involving allegations of market manipulation. His experience includes:
- In City of Providence, Rhode Island, et al. v. BATS Global Markets Inc. et al., an alleged market manipulation class action related to stocks, supporting an expert to evaluate proposed theories of liability and alleged mechanisms of harm; leading the analyses of large datasets of trade orders and executions
- Analyzing trader chats in the context of alleged manipulation of bid-ask spreads in the FX market
Bankruptcy proceedings
Mr. Morel has experience in bankruptcy-related matters in different contexts, including:
- Analyzing the close-out process of a large portfolio of FX instruments, including options and forwards, as well as the valuation of this portfolio in the context of a large financial institution’s bankruptcy
- Evaluating the reasonableness of directors’ expectations about the viability of a company that went bankrupt
Financial institutions
Mr. Morel leads teams to assist financial institutions with diverse types of litigation. His experience includes:
- Analyzing interest rates charged by unsecured lenders to subprime borrowers
- Conducting loss causation and damages analyses related to mortgage-backed securities, including risk management considerations, using Monte-Carlo simulations and other statistical analyses
- Evaluating statistical evidence of inflated appraisals allegedly ordered by a financial institution
- Assessing a rating agency’s rating process in the context of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) based on collaterals composed of residential mortgage-backed securities
Other litigation
- Using econometric analyses, analyzed the effects of a pharmaceutical company’s alleged false marketing of physician prescriptions
- In a healthcare class certification matter, assessed class heterogeneity and simulated the effect of benefit changes on plan coverage
- In a False Claims Act matter, analyzed Medicare payments to Medicare Advantage plans
- Analyzed damages in the jury trial for KFx Medical Corp. v. Arthrex Inc.
- Consulted on multiple breach of contract matters involving lost profits, including in the satellite TV and film industries