August 7, 2009 - The court dismissed the complaint with prejudice and ordered the case closed.
August 6, 2009 - The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss.

February 6, 2009 - Defendants filed a motion to dismiss.

January 5, 2009 - The lead plaintiff filed an amended complaint.

December 22, 2008 - The lead plaintiff and counsel were appointed.

November 17, 2008 - Lead plaintiff motions were filed.

November 7, 2008 - Defendants filed a motion to dismiss.

September 17, 2008 - An investor in shares of Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ: NTRS) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of State against Northern Trust Corporation over alleged violations of Federal Securities Laws.

According to the complaint the plaintiff charges Northern Trust Corporation and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The complaint alleges that between September 16, 2003 and February 13, 2008 defendant issued materially false and misleading statements regarding Northern Trust Corporation’s business and financial results.

The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Northern Trust Corporation materially misrepresented the liquidity of and risks associated with auction rate securities and omitted material facts about the auction rate securities market, including: 1) misrepresenting that auction rate securities were like cash and were highly liquid, safe investments for short-term investing; 2) misrepresenting that the auction rate securities offered by Northern Trust were equivalent to cash or money market funds and were safe, highly liquid short-term investment vehicles and that cash could be received in a matter of days; 3) failing to disclose to purchasers of auction rate securities material facts about these securities; and 4) failing to disclose that these securities were not cash alternatives, like money market funds, and were instead, complex, long-term financial instruments with 30-year maturity dates, or longer.

In fact, as alleged in the Complaint, even though a number of auctions began to fail in the Summer of 2007 and thereafter, Northern Trust Corporation continued to encourage investors to purchase auction rate securities and continued to represent to investors that these securities were like cash or money market accounts and were highly liquid, safe investments for short-term investing, without adequately disclosing the risks associated with the securities. As further alleged, on February 13, 2008, 87% of all auctions of auction rate securities failed when all of the major broker-dealers, including UBS, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, among others, refused to continue to support the auctions. As a result of the withdrawal of support by all of the major broker-dealers, the market for auction rate securities collapsed, rendering more than $300 billion of outstanding securities illiquid.