Amongst the twelve named: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch & Co., JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Credit Suisse, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and others. Sounds dicey:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and 11 other securities firms have been accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to rig the fees charged to short sellers...

...In a class action filed in federal court New York on Dec. 1, two short sellers claimed that the 13 firms conspired to charge excessive fees for certain ``hard-to-borrow'' stocks, in violation of antitrust laws. The defendants locate, borrow and deliver stocks involved in most short sales, the complaint said.

The firms "orchestrated a massive scheme whereby they have combined and conspired to raise, fix, and maintain, at artificially inflated levels, the fees paid by plaintiffs,'' the complaint said...

...Plaintiffs Forza Capital Management LLC of Bend, Oregon, and BHL Capital Partners LP of Westport, Connecticut, who are represented by Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, are seeking unspecified damages...

Read on at Bloomberg.

-- MDT

Labels: Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, Morgan Stanley