Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Investigations

Merrill Lynch CDOs

Date Started: February 5, 2008

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Investigating Merrill Lynch's Sales of CDOs to Municipalities and Other Public or Taft Hartley Pension Funds

SEATTLE -Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP (www.hbsslaw.com/cdo) today announced it is investigating the marketing and sales of consolidated debt obligations (CDOs) by Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and whether the company inappropriately offered high-risk CDOs to municipalities and other qualified institutional investors without making the appropriate disclosures, and/or knowing the unsuitability of the investment.

Merrill Lynch is believed to have offered more than $24 billion in high-risk CDOs, much of which was sold to municipalities and public pension funds for which the investments may have been inappropriate or unauthorized. Many of these CDOs dropped in value, holding just a fraction of their original value.

Recently, Massachusetts charged that Merrill Lynch violated Massachusetts securities laws by selling the city of Springfield "inappropriate" CDOs that lost more than 90 percent of their value. Merrill Lynch has admitted that "the purchases of these securities were made without the express permission of the city," after agreeing to reimburse the city.

HBSS is investigating whether the brokerage firm fairly disclosed risks to other municipalities and public pension funds or Taft-Hartley Funds.

If you are a public pension fund, municipality or other institutional investor who was sold CDOs by Merrill Lynch, or have information concerning this investigation, please contact plaintiff's counsel Steve Berman of Hagens Berman via e-mail at info@hbsslaw.com. You can view additional materials on this investigation at www.hbsslaw.com/cdo.

HBSS believes that if these cases move forward, they would warrant individual attention, addressing the particular facts of each clientęs case. Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, a law firm with offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Phoenix, is active in major litigations pending in federal and state courts throughout the United States and has taken a leading role in many important actions on behalf of defrauded investors, consumers, and companies, as well as victims of human rights violations. The Hagens Berman Web site (www.hbsslaw.com) has more information about the firm.