On November 10, 2020, the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island filed a shareholder derivative action on behalf of Citigroup, Inc. against the Company’s current and former members of the board of directors arising from Defendants’ breaches of fiduciary duties and violations of state and federal law from the beginning of 2018 through the present. According to the complaint, Defendants in this action are responsible for the Board’s conscious failure over many years to comply with regulatory standards and government orders mandating enterprise-wide reforms to the Company’s internal controls and risk-management systems, a failure which has already cost Citigroup billions of dollars in regulatory, civil, and criminal penalties. Not only has the Board—after a decade of public and private pressure from regulators and shareholders, and billions in fines—failed to reform Citigroup’s internal controls and ensure the Company’s regulatory compliance, the Board has failed to even determine what needs to be done, how long it will take, or how much it might cost.
On December 3, 2020, Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Southern District of New York issued an order consolidating the related derivative actions and appointed Rhode Island as Co-Lead Plaintiff with Saxena White serving as Co-Lead Counsel in the consolidated action.
On December 24th, 2020, Saxena White filed a consolidated complaint. On February 8, 2021, the Court granted Defendants’ Motion to Stay the proceedings pending the resolution of the Motion to Dismiss in the securities litigation class action suit filed against Citigroup.
