On Wednesday, May 14th, 2008, Judge Curtis L. Collier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee approved a $40 million settlement in a securities class action against the insurance company Unum Group. Shareholders who purchased securities of insurance company have filed the class action alleging the insurer of artificially inflating its stock price. The class-action suit possibly involved almost 186,000 investors between March 2000 and April 2003. Company spokesman Jim Sabourin said Unum agreed to the settlement “essentially to prevent further controversy and to avoid the significant costs associated with continued litigation.”