Mr. Klafter has more than twenty years experience prosecuting securities and commercial litigation. He was an attorney with the United States Department of Justice-Antitrust Division, an associate with Kreindler & Kreindler, and, from 1988 to 2003, a partner of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP. Early in his career, Mr. Klafter was one of the principal lawyers responsible for the prosecution of over 100 defendants to recoup the losses suffered by the purchasers of municipal bonds issued by the Washington Public Power Supply System when it defaulted on those bonds. That litigation resulted in the recovery of over $800 million and was one of the largest securities fraud settlements in history.
Mr. Klafter has served as a lead counsel in prosecuting numerous securities class actions on behalf of investors in common stock, municipal bonds, convertible debentures, and preferred stock in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been recovered on behalf of investors. Among his many notable achievements are the recent recovery of $48 million in In re Independent Energy PLC Securities Litigation, the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ complaint in In re Scholastic Corp. Securities Litigation, and a significant recovery on behalf of holders of Sun Oil Company preferred stock in litigation over the indenture governing the stock. He also successfully challenged Delaware regulations governing the disposal of solid waste on behalf of waste haulers, the laying of fiber optic cable along railroad rights of way on behalf of adjoining landowners, and efforts to impose the cost of Y2K compliance on businesses and medical practices by suppliers of various computer software.
Mr. Klafter is a member of the Class Actions and Derivative Suits Committee of the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association and a member of the Faculty of the Practicing Law Institute. He has also lectured and published extensively on securities litigation issues. A partial list of his speeches, public service and publications is attached.
Mr. Klafter graduated from Syracuse University in 1975 with a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law in 1979 where he was Associate Editor of the Rutgers Camden Law Journal. He is a member of the Bar of the State of New York, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, other federal district courts, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States.