Class-action metrics: served on and certified against large companies

In the press, the bugaboo of litigation expense, class action lawsuits, looms all the time, yet how often do companies of $1 billion in revenue or larger face them? Fulbright & Jaworski’s Second Annual Litigation Trends Survey offers some data (at 24, 25, and 27).

In the previous year, “nearly 40% of companies with revenues of $1 billion or more [around 100 companies] were served” with a class action complaint. In the past three years, however, 83 percent of those companies had zero class actions certified against them. Of that size bracket, 62 percent faced none. It sounds like the bugaboo is exaggerated; many are called but few are chosen.