Education:

• B.A., Queens College (1981)
• J.D., Bridgeport School of Law (1984)

Bar affiliations & court admissions: 

• Bar of the State of New York (1985)
• Bar of the District of Columbia (2013)
• U.S. Supreme Court
• U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits
• U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the District of Colorado and the District of Columbia

Professional affiliations: 

• American Bar Association
• Association of the Bar of the City of New York
• Association of Trial Lawyers of America (Chairman, Commercial Law Section, 1991 92)

Fred Fox first associated with Kaplan Fox in 1984 and became a partner in the firm in 1991. For over 30 years, he has concentrated his practice in class action, opt-out and other complex litigation, particularly securities, consumer, and antitrust cases. He was one of the lead trial lawyers in two securities class actions, one of which was the first case tried to verdict under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 

Mr. Fox counsels the firm’s many public pension fund clients on seeking redress in foreign jurisdictions or bringing an individual action in the U.S. to adequately protect and recover lost assets in cases involving foreign securities. Mr. Fox has been a lead counsel in many major securities class action cases, including as a senior member of the litigation and trial team in In re Bank of America Corp., Securities, Derivative, and ERISA Litigation, No. 1:09-md-020508-PKC (S.D.N.Y.), which settled for $2.425 billion plus significant corporate governance reforms, and stands as one of the largest securities class action settlements in history. 

Recently, Mr. Fox settled claims in  an individual opt-out action on behalf of a public pension fund arising out of the fraud at Petrobras in Brazil.  The cases Mr. Fox is currently handling or recently handled include: In re Vale S.A. Sec. Litig., No. 19-cv-00526 (S.D.N.Y.), a securities class action, as court appointed lead counsel for the court-appointed lead plaintiff, arising out of the January 2019 collapse of a tailings dam and Vale’s false and misleading statements about the safety of its dams and commitment to the health and safety of its workers; Arkansas Teacher Retirement Sys. V. Allianz Global Investors US LLC, No. 20-cv-5615 (S.D.N.Y.), an individual action, alleging negligence and breach of contractual and fiduciary duties arising from misconduct and gross mismanagement of three investment funds, which reached a favorable recovery in 2022; and State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio v. Charles River Labs. Int’l Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-11132 (D. Mass.), a securities class action, as court appointed lead counsel for the court-appointed lead plaintiff, involving allegations that during the Class Period Charles River made false and misleading statements and omitted material facts with respect to its importation of non-human primates.  In these cases, Mr. Fox and the firm are counsel on behalf of public pension fund clients.

Other significant cases in which Mr. Fox served as lead counsel include: In re Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. Securities, Derivative, & ERISA Litigation, No. 07-cv-9633 (S.D.N.Y.)(in which he was the primary attorney responsible for negotiating the $475 million settlement); In re Fannie Mae 2008 Securities Litigation, No. 08-cv-7831 (S.D.N.Y.) (“In re Fannie Mae 2008”) ($170 million settlement); In re SunPower Securities Litigation, Case No. 09-cv-5473 (N.D. Cal.); In re Merrill Lynch Research Reports Securities Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) (arising from analyst reports issued by Henry Blodget); In re Salomon Analyst Williams Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) and In re Salomon Focal Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) (both actions stemming from analyst reports issued by Jack Grubman). 

Mr. Fox has also handled derivative cases seeking corporate governance reform and other shareholder litigation on behalf of public pension funds asserting state law and foreign causes of action.   Mr. Fox currently represents CalSTRS and the Firemen’s Retirement System of St. Louis in a derivative action in Delaware arising out of Facebook’s many years of improper data sharing with third parties, Karen Sbriglio, Firemen’s Retirement System of St. Louis and California State Teachers’ Retirement System, derivatively on behalf of Nominal Defendant Facebook, Inc. vs. Mark Zuckerberg, et al., Case Number: 2018-0307-JRS (Del. Ch.).  Mr. Fox is a frequent speaker and panelist in both the U.S. and abroad on a variety of topics including securities litigation and corporate governance.

Over the past decade, Mr. Fox has prosecuted a wide variety of consumer protection cases, including as co-lead in In re: Apple Inc. Device Performance Litig., No. 5:18-MD-2827-EJD (N.D. Cal.), a global consumer protection and computer intrusion class action arising out of Apple’s December 2017 admission that it had been secretly throttling iPhone performance for almost a year. Other notable cases include the non-GMO class action of Schneider v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., No.16-cv-02200 (N.D. Cal.) and In re: Yahoo! Mail Litigation, No. 5:13-cv-04980-LHK (N.D. Cal.).  He also served on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the Baycol Products Litigation where there were more than $350 million in settlements.

Within the area of consumer protection, Mr. Fox is also active in the firm’s growing data privacy and cyberlaw practice. Mr. Fox and the firm have had court-appointed roles in national class actions against defendants Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn, as well as two insurance companies and one data analytics company. He served as co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in this digital privacy class action, challenging Yahoo’s practice of “scanning” incoming and outgoing emails for content, in order to target advertising more effectively.  On August 25, 2016, Judge Lucy Koh granted final approval of an innovative settlement in which Yahoo agreed to change its email delivery architecture to comply with California privacy law.  See In re Yahoo Mail Litig., 2016 WL 4474612, *10 (N.D. Cal., Aug. 26, 2016).

Mr. Fox is listed in the current editions of New York Super Lawyers and was recognized in Benchmark Litigation as a New York “Litigation Star.”  Mr. Fox is also a frequent speaker and panelist in both the U.S and abroad on a variety of topics including securities litigation and corporate governance.

Mr. Fox is the author of “Current Issues and Strategies in Discovery in Securities Litigation,” ATLA, 1989 Reference Material; “Securities Litigation: Updates and Strategies,” ATLA, 1990 Reference Material; and “Contributory Trademark Infringement: The Legal Standard after Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories,” University of Bridgeport Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 2. 

During law school, Mr. Fox was the notes and comments editor of the University of Bridgeport Law Review.