On May 6, 2009, Mississippi Public Employees' Retirement System ("PERS") and Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Trust were appointed Co-Lead Plaintiffs and the District Court approved their selection of Labaton Sucharow LLP, along with Wolf Popper LLP, and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, to serve as Co-Lead Counsel in In re Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc Securities Litigation No.1:09-cv-00300-DAB (S.D.N.Y.). Lead Plaintiffs represent a class of purchasers of RBS's ordinary shares between June 6, 2007 and January 9, 2009.

The case stems from allegations that RBS defendants falsely reassured investors that RBS was well capitalized when, in fact, the Company was effectively insolvent as a result of impaired assets, bad loans, and its disastrous partial acquisition of ABN AMRO ("ABN").

On October 7, 2008, news began to emerge that the British government was holding talks with major banks, including RBS, concerning the possibility of government funding, and on November 28, 2008, RBS announced that the government would take majority control of the bank, buying a 57.9% stake in the Company. In December 2008, it was revealed that RBS had lost half a billion dollars in the Madoff scandal. Then, on January 19, 2009, RBS announced that it expected to lose approximately £28 billion in 2008, in large part due to the write-off of goodwill associated with ABN as well as charges associated with bad loans. This was the biggest loss in British corporate history. Thereafter, the prices of RBS's publicly traded securities declined significantly.

Between February 1, 2007 and January 19, 2009, RBS failed to disclose (1) the Company's extensive investments in asset-backed securities, including collateralized debt obligations, and its exposure to the subprime mortgage market; (2) all of the risks associated with the purchase of ABN's assets; (3) insufficient capital levels; and (4) the failure to adequately write-down bad assets. The investing public has learned that (1) RBS's portfolio of debt securities was impaired to a much larger extent than the Company had disclosed; (2) RBS failed to properly record losses for impaired assets; (3) RBS's internal controls were inadequate to prevent the Company from improperly reporting its debt securities; and (4) RBS's capital base was not adequate enough to withstand the significant deterioration in the subprime market and, as a result, RBS was forced to raise significant amounts of additional capital, ultimately selling itself to the government.

On July 16, 2009, Lead Plaintiffs filed their Consolidated Complaint in the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.  On October 23, 2009, various RBS defendants filed motions to dismiss the Consolidated Complaint. Lead Plaintiffs' oppositions to those motions are due on January 15, 2010.