The expected post-Morrison decline in federal securities class-action filings hasn't yet materialized. Thanks to a second half jolt, the pace of U.S. filings is on track to exceed last year's total, according to the latest study by NERA Economic Consulting.

Following a slowdown during the first half of the year, NERA projects federal securities class-action filings will reach 239 cases by year's end, well above the 220 class-action cases filed in 2009, according to the firm's 2010 Year-End Update. The report is based on filings and dismissals through Nov. 30 and settlements through Dec. 31.

The rate of class-actions filings stemming from the global credit crisis continues to fall. Only 31 such cases had been filed through the end of November, compared to 57 in 2009 and 103 in 2008.

Those cases have been offset by a resurgence in other types of filings, including undisclosed product and operational defects, breach of fiduciary duties, and accounting improprieties, according to authors Jordan Milev, Robert Patton, and Svetlana Starykh.

Undisclosed product and operational defects, including alleged defects relating to both financial and non-financial products, and breach of fiduciary duty (generally relating to mergers and acquisitions) were among the most frequent allegations in cases filed in 2010.

Financial institutions remain a major target. Those companies were named as the primary defendant and/or codefendant in 90 cases, or about 41 percent of securities class actions filed. More than half of the filings against those companies appear unrelated to the credit crisis, according to the report.

Breaking a pattern of the past several years, the Ninth Circuit led the number of filings in 2010. The Second Circuit had the most filings in each year from 2006 to 2009. As of November 2010, the Ninth Circuit had 62 filings, 26 percent more filings than the Second Circuit.

The median settlement value exceeded $10 million for the first time ever, climbing more than 30 percent to $11.1 million in 2010. That was driven by a record high in the median value of investor losses, a variable that serves as a proxy for the size of a case and correlates highly with the settlement amount, according to NERA. Median investor losses for cases settled in 2010 reached a record $604 million, more than 50 percent higher than in any year since the 1995 enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Meanwhile, median investor losses for cases filed in 2010 are down to pre-credit crisis levels and well below recent highs in 2008 and 2009. Looking ahead, the authors say that may suggest a decline in the size of the median settlement once the wave of credit crisis litigation is resolved.