Simpson, Margaret E.

Bruce L. Simon specializes in complex cases involving antitrust consumer fraud and securities cases. For the past 23 years he was a named partner at a nationally recognized firm, and served as lead counsel in many business cases with national and global significance.

A fourth generation San Franciscan, Mr. Simon earned an A.B. in political science at the University of California at Berkeley in 1977. He received his law degree from Hastings College of Law in 1980. He is a frequent speaker on trial strategies in business cases, and has lectured throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Mr. Simon is the immediate past chair of the California State Bar Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section. He is also the past chair of the Business Torts Section of the American Trial Lawyers Association. Mr. Simon is the immediate past chair of the Board of Directors of the Hastings College of the Law. He is also an annual panelist for California Continuing Education of the Bar on Recent Developments in The Law.

Mr. Simon is the co-author of the Matthew Bender Practice Guide: California Unfair Competition and Business Torts (2004), which provides in-depth and practical coverage of the State’s Unfair Competition Law as well as antitrust law and other commonly prosecuted business torts.

He has been active in community affairs. For example, he served as special counsel to the California State Senate Committee on Insurance in its investigation of the State's Insurance Commissioner. He has also been appointed counsel by the Federal Court as part of the court's pro bono prisoners’ rights program. In addition, he served on the San Mateo County Civil Litigation Committee, which helped develop the first courthouse for high technology and complex litigation cases in San Mateo County.

Mr. Simon is currently one of the principal attorneys in the In re Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Antitrust Litigation, which is a multi-district litigation action pending in the Northern District of California. DRAM is one of several related high technology cases for which Mr. Simon serves as counsel, including cases related to SRAM, LCD, and Flash Memory. Settlements in DRAM top $300 million to date.

Mr. Simon has extensive class action experience. He has served as lead or co-lead counsel in several nationwide class actions including In re Sodium Gluconate Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Cal.), an antitrust case involving a food additive product; In re Louisiana Pacific Corp. Inner-Seal OSB Trade Practices Litigation (ND Cal.), a product defect case involving a plywood substitute known as oriented strand board; County of Santa Clara v. Central Sprinkler (Santa Clara County Superior Court), another products liability action involving defective fire sprinklers; In re Methionine Antitrust Litigation, which resulted in over $100 million in settlements; and In re Behr Wood Sealant Litigation, which resulted in a $107 million settlement of claims alleging that certain sealants were defective. Mr. Simon also handled the In Re Citric Acid Antitrust Litigation which resulted in over $80 million in settlements for direct purchasers of this food additive product.

Mr. Simon has also litigated and tried securities and investment fraud cases, and in particular, cases where the fraud was committed with the assistance of professionals. He tried the Osborne Securities case in Santa Clara County, and won a multi-million dollar jury verdict. That case involved critical issues about the responsibilities of accountants and eventually went to the Supreme Court, setting standards for accounting liability in California. He also represented Union Bank in a case against a national accounting firm that had provided misleading financial statements to the bank on behalf of a corporate borrower, and obtained a $7 million jury verdict that was upheld on appeal.

Mr. Simon was the lead attorney in the HomeFed Securities Litigation in federal court in San Diego, where he pursued the derivative claims of the failed S&L. The HomeFed failure was one of the largest in United States history, and Mr. Simon was instrumental in obtaining in excess of $20 million in settlements just prior to trial. More recently, Mr. Simon has been involved as one of the lead attorneys in the Informix Securities Litigation, which involved the restatement of revenues in excess of $300 million, and he has been the principal attorney responsible for the Sybase and CBT derivative cases which involved cutting edge issues related to revenue recognition policies of such Silicon Valley companies.

He was also involved in the In re Homestore Securities Litigation on behalf of the lead plaintiff, the California State Teachers' Retirement System. In an earlier settlement, Homestore.com, Inc. agreed to reform its corporate policies and to pay approximately $90 million in cash and stock to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the Internet real estate company of falsifying financial statements and engaging in accounting irregularities. More recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that audited Homestore.com’s financial statements, agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle its part of the class action suit. Total assessments to date are over $100 million.

He has been a contributor to the Communication and Entertainment Law Journal of the Hastings College of Law, 1979-1980; co-author of "Plaintiff's Perspective on Jury Strategies" and "Creative Use of Deposition Testimony at Trial," Accountants' Liability, 1990: Trial Strategies, Practicing Law Institute and California Continuing Education of the Bar; co-author of "Accountants' Liability: Calculation of Damages," Accountants' Liability 1991, Practicing Law Institute Practice; consultant for "Malicious Prosecution and Abuse of Process," Bancroft Whitney's California Civil Practice, Torts, Chap. 19; "Class Certification in Unfair Business Practices Cases," California Antitrust Law, Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section of the State Bar of California, 2002; "Cutting Edge Issues in Unfair Competition Law-What you Must Know," Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section, State Bar of California, May 2003; "Class Certification in Competition and Consumer Protection Cases," Treatise Chapter, Unfair Competition Law Section, State Bar of California, 2003.

Mr. Simon has lectured on "Accountants' Liability," San Jose State University Business School, 1990-1992; "Current Issues in Accountant Liability," Santa Clara County Bar Business Litigation Section, 1990; "Coming to Grips With the Complex Commercial Case," California Trial Lawyer Association Annual Tahoe Seminar, 1992; Continuing Education of the Bar 13th Annual Development Program, February 1996; "The Use of Video Depositions," CSPA SF Chapter CPE Extravaganza, May 1996; "Products Liability," ALI-ABA Course, July 1996; Consumer Attorneys of California, "Legal Technology You Must Know to Practice Law in the 21st Century," 1996; San Mateo County Bar Association, "The Use of Technology in Depositions and Trial," 1997; Western Trial Lawyers Association, "Handling the Financial Fraud Case," 1998; "Indirect Purchaser Actions and Class Certification," ATLA Annual Seminar, 2001; "What Makes a Good Expert Witness," Business Valuation Roundtable, San Francisco, 2001.

Mr. Simon has served as a panelist for the Litigation Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco and the San Francisco Chapter of the California Society of CPAs, "The Accounting Profession on Trial: Bily and Beyond," 1993; American Inns of Court, "The Leadership Challenge: Practical Applications for the Trial Lawyer," 1993; "Advanced Course on Products Liability Litigation, October 2000, Continuing Education of the Bar; "A Primer for Trial Lawyers - Antitrust Actions, A New Look," Montana Trial Lawyers Association, February 2000; "Antitrust and the New Economy," Association of Business Trial Lawyers September 2000; "B&P Code Section 17200 Claims and What They Mean To You, Consumer Attorneys of California 2002; "Fresh Perspectives on Class Action Litigation in the Wake of the Class Action Fairness Act and Proposition 64," California State Bar 13th Annual Golden State Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Institute, October 2005; "The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005: An Overview," American Bar Association Brown Bag Seminar, April 2005; "The International Cartel Workshop," American Bar Association International Forum 2004 and 2006.