Fairfax baseball caps at a Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. annual meeting in Toronto. (Photo: Norm Betts/Bloomberg)

On Monday, a jury in Morris County, New Jersey, awarded Fairfax Financial and its subsidiary, Crum & Forster, $5.4 million in compensatory damages and a $5.5 million punitive award, following a six-week trial against hedge fund Exis Capital Management and principals Adam Sender and Andrew Heller. The verdict follows a $20 million settlement reached Sept. 1 with another defendant in the case, investment fund Morgan Keegan & Co. of Memphis.

The suit by Toronto-based Fairfax Financial, the owner of a number of insurance companies, alleged that a group of hedge funds and analysts conspired to undermine confidence in Fairfax by disseminating false and misleading information about it to the company's employees, shareholders and creditors. It claimed the defendants manufactured false accounting and business problems relating to Fairfax and that they sought to instigate investigations by providing false information to regulatory agencies.