The plaintiffs? "Policy holders in [MetLife], a mutual company" that "converted to a publicly held stock insurance company in 2000."
"The plaintiffs allege that before the adoption of the plan to turn MetLife into a public company, it had an 'undisclosed plan to issue excess shares of MetLife stock and then buy them back,'" says the article. Plaintiffs claim that "because of these actions, they received a lower initial public offering price for the stock shares allotted to them."
While the plaintiffs believe mailing a "random sample" works best, MetLife disagrees. Instead, the insurance company argues, the best way to reach members is by notifying each of them by mail. MetLife also argues "that when the notice is not by mail the alternative form of notice must not be substantially less likely to reach the class members."
The outcome?
The judge decided that a random sampling will be sent to 500,000 people or firms from a list created by MetLife. The plaintiffs must pay "the cost of the newspaper publication and one-half of the cost of the 500,000 mailings," while MetLife will pay the other half of the mailing costs, according to the article.
