Chicago Clearing Corporation (CCC) is a securities

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

settlement claim filing service based in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. Started in 1993 to buy and sell

coupons In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in r ...

issued at the end of class action settlements, the company now employs more than 20 staff members. CCC has over 1000 clients that include bank trust departments,

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...

mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV ...

registered investment adviser A registered investment adviser (RIA) is a firm that is an investment adviser in the United States, registered as such with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or a state's securities agency. The numerous references to RIAs within the Inve ...

s, professional traders, and insurance companies. This client base has approximately $2 trillion in AUM and more than 2,000,000 individual accounts.

Notable Settlements

Chicago Clearing Corporation or CCC has grown extensively as the rate of securities class action settlements has exploded in recent years. *

BMW M5 The BMW M5 is a high performance variant of the BMW 5 Series marketed under the BMW M sub-brand. It is considered an iconic vehicle in the sports sedan category. The majority of M5s have been produced in the sedan (saloon) body style, but in so ...

Litigation - A lawsuit was filed by the buyers of the 1988 BMW M5 after the company produced more of what was supposed to be a limited edition model. As part of this settlement in 1993, owners were issued a $4,000

voucher A voucher is a bond of the redeemable transaction type which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include housing, travel, and food vouchers. The term voucher is also ...

towards their next BMW car purchase. Chicago Clearing Corporation acted as a

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the ''bid–ask spread'', or ''turn.'' The benefit to the firm is that i ...

and facilitated the buying and selling of these coupons in the same way as on the stock market. * Linens Antitrust Litigation - In this landmark trial, the New York restaurant industry argued that the major suppliers of linens colluded to fix their prices at artificially high levels. This 2003 case resulted in both $6 million in cash and $3 million in vouchers being awarded to the prosecution. Chicago Clearing Corporation bought and sold these coupons as many of the former clients no longer wanted to do business with these suppliers. *

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

- This securities class action litigation settled for $2.425 billion with a claim filing deadline on April 25, 2013. Bank of America failed to accurately report losses that it and Merrill Lynch had sustained between 2008-2009 while the two companies were in the process of merging. The stock price tumbled by nearly $8 and a government investment was required in order to finalize the merger. This is one of the biggest securities class actions settlement funds to come out of several pending financial meltdown cases from 2007-2009 and to date, CCC has filed for 500 institutional clients and over 52,000 individual accounts on this one case alone. * Citigroup - Citigroup was forced to pay their investors $730 million due to allegedly reporting false figures on their statements. During the period of May 2006 until November 2008, the company also omitted many crucial sections of their debt and preferred stock disclosures. Much of the withheld information stemmed from issues dating back to the

mortgage-backed securities A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an 'instrument') which is secured by a mortgage or collection of mortgages. The mortgages are aggregated and sold to a group of individuals (a government agency or investment ba ...

crisis and Citigroup's overexposure to these types of assets. However, Citigroup still denies any wrongdoing and entered into the settlement in order to, "eliminate the uncertainties, burden and expense of further protracted litigation." * Merck and Co. - Merck and

Schering-Plough Schering-Plough Corporation was an American pharmaceutical company. It was originally the U.S. subsidiary of the German company Schering AG, which was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering. As a result of nationalization, it beca ...

settled a $688 million lawsuit after the two companies merged in 2009. Both of these drug companies reportedly delayed showing poor tests results from their new cholesterol drugs in order to shield themselves from bigger issues during the acquisition process. When these finding were eventually revealed, many investors suffered as the stock price quickly fell. Holders of Merck received $215 million, while Schering-Plough investors received the bulk of the settlement in the form of $473 million. Not only were many members of CCC's client base affected by this settlement, but it also resulted in large payouts for many across the securities class action claim filing sector.

References

{{reflist Companies based in Chicago Class action lawsuits Financial services companies of the United States 1993 establishments in Illinois 1993 establishments in the United States Companies established in 1993 Financial services companies established in 1993 Settlement (finance)

Notable Settlements

See also

References