Sean M. Murphy is a partner in the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group. Prior to joining Milbank in 2004, Mr. Murphy was a partner in the New York office of Clifford Chance LLP, where he was a member of that firm’s Securities Litigation practice group.
Primary Focus & Experience
Mr. Murphy’s practice focuses on complex securities matters. He has defended dozens of companies and financial institutions in multi-jurisdictional class action and derivative litigation under state and federal securities laws, including claims under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. He has extensive experience representing investment advisers in class and derivative litigation involving management fees, revenue sharing, conflicts of interest, prospectus disclosure, distribution and trading, portfolio mismanagement, Rule 12b-1, board oversight and fiduciary duty litigation.
Mr. Murphy has represented some of the largest financial institutions in the country in complex securities cases, including Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, Capital Group, AllianceBernstein, American Century, Dreyfus, Federated Investors, First Trust Advisers, Legg Mason, Neuberger Berman, Prudential, Putnam, Royal Bank of Canada, Salomon Smith Barney and Waddell & Reed.
He has extensive experience trying securities cases, including several multi-billion dollar cases. In 2005, Mr. Murphy defended AllianceBernstein L.P. in a seven week jury trial in an action brought by the Florida state pension board in Jacksonville, Florida, seeking over $3 billion in damages stemming from Alliance’s investments in Enron. The jury returned a verdict in Alliance’s favor which was ranked by the National Law Journal as one of the Top 10 Defense Wins of the Year. More recently, Mr. Murphy successfully defended Capital Research and Management Company in an action in which plaintiffs challenged the receipt by Capital Research of more than $15 billion in fees for managing eight of the largest mutual funds in the country. Following a two week bench trial in August 2009, the court rendered an opinion dismissing plaintiffs’ complaint with prejudice. In re American Mutual Funds Fee Litigation, No. CV 04-5593 GAF, 2009 WL 5215755 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 28, 2009).
Recognition & Accomplishments
Mr. Murphy has been recognized as a leading litigator by a number of publications, including: the American Lawyer’s “Fab Fifty” list of the top 50 litigators in the country under the age of 45; he was selected as one of the top 500 lawyers in the country in Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America; and Legal 500 described him as “one of the best young lawyers for securities shareholder litigation, anywhere in the country.” Lawdragon also elected Mr. Murphy to its list of “100 Lawyers You Need to Know in Securities Litigation,” and profiled him as a “rising star” in “The Lawdragon 500 New Stars, New Worlds.” Mr. Murphy also has been consistently recognized as a leading securities lawyer in Chambers USA, Benchmark Litigation and New York Super Lawyers.
Mr. Murphy has spoken on a number of panels about complex litigation issues, and has written a number of articles, including “The Trial of a Securities Case” (1996), “Litigation Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act” (1997), “Recent Developments in Litigation Under the Investment Company Act of 1940” (2004), “Mutual Funds Under Scrutiny” (2005), “Securities Plaintiffs Turn to Class Actions Under ERISA” (2008), “Court Finds Implied Private Right of Action Under the Investment Company Act” (2009), and “The SEC’s Mutual Fund Fee Initiative: What to Expect” (2010). Recently, he also co-authored a chapter of a textbook titled Litigating Securities Class Actions (2011).