Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $70 million to settle a class-action suit by investors claiming it misstated its subprime asset losses.
In an agreement filed in Manhattan, the Swiss bank said it would settle with investors who purchased United States depositary shares of the company’s stock on the New York Exchange between February 15, 2007 and April 14, 2008.

US residents who purchased Credit Suisse stock on the Swiss stock exchange during the period are also included. The settlement must be approved by the court.

Defendants had alleged that during the period in question, Credit Suisse and some of its executives, including chief executive Brady Dougan, issued “materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's business and financial results”.

Specifically, they alleged that Credit Suisse “concealed the company’s failure to write down impaired securities containing mortgage-related debt”.

In the settlement, Credit Suisse said it continued to “deny all charges of wrongdoing or liability”. However, the bank said it concluded that “further continuation of the action would be protracted and expensive”.

A lawsuit seeking class-action status accuses Harrah's New Orleans Casino of failing to protect its employees from dangerous levels of secondhand smoke.

The mother of a former Harrah's dealer who died of cancer last year filed the federal suit Wednesday against the casino's owner, Nevada-based Caesars Entertainment Corp. The suit claims Maceo Bevrotte Jr.'s cancer was "directly linked" to his prolonged exposure to secondhand smoke at the casino. The suit says Bevrotte worked at Harrah's for about 15 years.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks a judge to certify the case as a class action for at least 1,000 current, former or future nonsmoking casino employees.

Caesar's spokesman Gary Thompson said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Tribune Co. employees at the time of company’s 2007 leveraged buy-out are eligible to join a class action lawsuit against the ESOP trustee that represented their interests in the takeover by billionaire Sam Zell, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Any Tribune Co. employee or beneficiary who received or were entitled to an allocation to their employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) stock or ESOP cash accounts are now automatically members of the class suing Lisle-based GreatBanc Trust Co. for failing to fulfill its fiduciary responsibility in the deal, said Daniel Feinberg, an attorney representing the employees and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer’s ruling is the second set-back in less than a week for GreatBanc, the remaining defendant with significant liability in a 2008 lawsuit brought by Dan Neil and other Los Angeles Times staffers against the architects of the ill-fated going-private transaction.