Joseph J Tabacco Jr

Practice Areas

• Securities Litigation

• Antitrust Litigation

Career

Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. (founder and Executive Committee member) has long been recognized by clients and lawyers on both sides of the bench as a leading plaintiffs’ antitrust and securities class action attorney. Indeed, when asked in a Law360 question-and-answer interview, “Outside your own firm, name one lawyer who’s impressed you,” a leading defense attorney named Mr. Tabacco, explaining that “Joe is a fine plaintiff’s counsel, and a formidable adversary, while being able to maintain collegial relationships with opposing counsel.” Mr. Tabacco has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of investors, business, and consumers prosecuting and, in some instances, trying antitrust and securities cases. See, e.g., Sullivan et al. v. DB Investments, Inc. et al., No. 04-cv-02819 (D.N.J.) (historic settlement with De Beers for $285 million in cash plus an agreement to submit to the jurisdiction of the U.S. court and a comprehensive injunction limiting De Beers’ ability to restrict the worldwide supply of diamonds in the future); In re Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. Securities, Derivative & ERISA Litigation, Master File No. 08 M.D.L. No. 963/08 Civ. 02793 (S.D.N.Y) ($294.9 million settlement).

Mr. Tabacco is the primary client contact for several of the firm’s public pension fund clients including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”) and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (“CalSTRS”). Over his 30-year career, Mr. Tabacco has advised and prosecuted numerous securities fraud and antitrust class actions on behalf of public pension funds and other investors. He oversaw the prosecution of the individual action by CalPERS against several credit rating agencies in California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. Moody’s Corp., No. CGC-09-490241 (Cal. Super. Ct. San Francisco County). The firm negotiated a combined $255 million settlement with the credit rating agencies Moody’s and S&P entities to settle CalPERS’ claim that “Aaa” ratings on three structured investment vehicles were negligent misrepresentations under California law. In addition to obtaining a substantial recovery for investment losses, this case was ground-breaking in that (a) the settlements rank as the largest known recoveries from Moody’s and S&P in a private lawsuit for civil damages, and (b) Mr. Tabacco successfully argued before the California Court of Appeals that rating agencies can, in certain circumstances, be liable for negligent misrepresentations under California law for their ratings of privately placed securities (see 226 Cal. App. 4th 643 (2014)). He also oversaw the following matters: (i) In re IndyMac Mortgage-Backed Securities Litigation, No. 1:09-cv-04583 (LAK) (settlements totalling $346 million); (ii) In re Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. Securities, Derivative & ERISA Litigation, Master File No. 08 M.D.L. No. 1963/08 Civ. 02793 (S.D.N.Y) (case settled for $294.9 million); (iii) In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation, No. 13-md-2420-YGR (N.D. Cal.) (settlements in the total amount of $139.3 million); and (iv) In re Cardizem CD Antitrust Litig., No. 99-01278 (E.D. Mich.) ($80 million settlement in first-of-its-kind case involving generic drug competition. As co-lead counsel, the firm obtained a pioneering ruling in the federal court of appeals regarding the “reverse payment” by a generic drug manufacturer to the brand name drug manufacturer, holding that the brand name drug manufacturer’s payment of $40 million per year to the generic company for the generic to delay bringing its competing drug to market was a per se unlawful market allocation agreement. That victory still shapes the ongoing antitrust battle over competition in the pharmaceutical market.). Moreover, over the years, Mr. Tabacco has been the lead or co-lead trial counsel in a number of class and individual securities cases that went to trial, including In re MetLife Demutualization Litigation (settled after jury empaneled), Gutman v. Howard Savings Bank (plaintiffs’ verdict after six-week trial), In re Equitec Securities Litigation (settled after six months of trial), and In re Ramtek Securities Litigation.

Currently, Mr. Tabacco oversees the firm’s class action litigation teams in the firm’s price-fixing/market manipulation cases alleging that major banks colluded to fix the prices of derivatives and other financial instruments by manipulating numerous financial benchmark rates. This includes representing CalSTRS, one of the country’s largest public pension funds, in (i) Sullivan v. Barclays PLC et al., No. 13-cv-2811 (S.D.N.Y.) (a class action against numerous Wall Street banks for price-fixing financial instruments tied to the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (the “Euribor”), which has total approved settlements of $651.5 million); (ii) Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., No. 1:12-cv-03419 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y.), and Sonterra Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. UBS AG, No. 1:15-cv-05844 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y) (two related class actions against numerous financial institutions for price-fixing financial instruments tied to the London Interbank Offered Rate for the Japanese Yen and the Euroyen Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate, which have total approved settlements of $329.5 million); and (iii) In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litigation, No. 03-md-1532 (D. Me.), and In re Automobile Antitrust Cases I and II, JCCP Nos. 4298 and 4303 (San Francisco Superior Court) (involving allegations that major automakers unlawfully conspired to stop the export of cheaper new Canadian vehicles into the United States; the federal case ended in 2009 and the San Francisco Superior Court case recently settled for $82 million just three weeks prior to the start of trial, which was approved by the court on October 31, 2022; with this settlement, the firm has achieved settlements totaling over $137 million for class members in the federal and California actions).

Prior to 1981, Mr. Tabacco served as senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division in both the Central District of California and the Southern District of New York. In that capacity, he had major responsibility for several criminal and civil matters, including the antitrust trial of United States v. IBM.

Education

• George Washington School of Law (J.D., with honors, 1974)

• University of Massachusetts-Amherst (B.A. in Government, 1971)

Awards

Mr. Tabacco has been ranked by The Legal 500 as a Recommended Attorney in Securities Litigation (2017-2019, 2021-2022) and Antitrust (2019-2022) and by Benchmark Litigation as a California State Litigation Star (2019-2023), San Francisco Local Litigation Star (2017-2023), Noted Star (Plaintiff Work) (2020-2022), and Noted Star (Antitrust, Intellectual Property, Securities) (2019-2021). Joe was also ranked by the Daily Journal as one of the Top Antitrust Lawyers in California in 2020; one of the Top Plaintiffs Lawyers in California in 2017; and as one of California’s top 30 securities litigators. The Best Lawyers in America® recognized Joe as Lawyer of the Year in Litigation-Securities for 2022. He has further been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® for Litigation-Antitrust (2018-2023) and for Litigation-Securities (2019-2023) and in Northern California Best Lawyers for Litigation-Antitrust and Litigation-Securities (2021-2023). He was included in the Top 100 list of attorneys in California in the 2019-2022 editions of Northern California Super Lawyers magazine, where he has been recognized as a Top Rated Antitrust Litigation Attorney for nineteen consecutive years (2004-2022). He was ranked by Global Competition Review’s Who’s Who Legal: Competition, most recently in 2022, where he has been listed for the past 9 years. He is AV Preeminent® rated by Martindale-Hubbell®. He was also selected by Lawdragon for its 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers guide (2019-2022), as featured in Lawdragon’s The Plaintiff Issue magazine (2020-2021).

Publications

Mr. Tabacco frequently lectures and authors articles on securities and antitrust law and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, including articles for the Bar Association of San Francisco, California Lawyer, PLI Securities Litigation & Enforcement Institute 2011, and chapters of the following books: A Practitioner’s Guide, Securities Litigation & Enforcement Institute (2011), and Settlement Windows of Opportunity—A Practitioner’s Guide, Securities Litigation & Enforcement Institute (2011).

Personal

Since 1998, Mr. Tabacco has served on the Board of Directors of Bay Area Legal Aid, a non-profit organization providing access to high-quality legal services to low-income individuals, including the working poor, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities. He previously served as a member of the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel and a member of the Northern District of California Model Protective Order Revision Committee after being appointed by the Chief Judge of the Northern District of California Court to these committees.

In addition, since 2008, Mr. Tabacco has served as an independent member of the Board of Directors of Overstock.com, a publicly traded internet retailer. He is Chair of the Board’s Corporate Governance Committee and serves as a member of the Board’s Audit and Compensation Committees.