October 20, 2009–California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced his intervention in a California state qui tam lawsuit against State Street Bank today. The original complaint was filed under seal by a qui tam relator and his counsel roughly one year ago in the Superior Court for the City of Sacramento.
For those of you new to the qui tam litigation framework, a qui tam relator and his or her attorney file a complaint under seal, and serve it first only on the government. In federal qui tam cases, the Attorney General of the United States is served, along with the local U.S. Attorney. The government then has a period of time to investigate and decide to do one of three things: (1) whether to take control over the case entirely; (2) whether they want to allow the qui tam relator to handle the case herself with the government playing a more passive role; or (3) the government can move to dismiss if it thinks the complaint is not well-grounded.
“Over a period of eight years, State Street bankers committed unconscionable fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to California’s public pension funds,” Brown said. “This is just the latest example of how clever financial traders violate laws and rip off the public trust.”
You can read the full complaint in intervention below, and I have also embedded a link to a California newspaper.