Litigation

The Paul, Weiss Litigation Department continues to be involved in cases that shape financial markets and corporate boardrooms, representing many of the world’s leading corporations in their most sensitive and complex matters. Client matters have included:

• Exxon Mobil Corporation in climate change-related investigations and suits brought by regulators, including state attorneys general deploying untested liability theories. These matters include representing the company in substantially defeating a class certification motion in a long-running putative federal securities class action alleging that the defendants made a series of purportedly false and misleading statements about the company’s proved reserves, asset impairments, and its use of proxy and greenhouse gas costs in its business planning, among other claims; an SEC investigation concerning climate change-related disclosures that was closed with a no-action determination; and winning a complete defense verdict in a landmark securities fraud action brought by the New York Attorney General seeking $1.6 billion in damages—the first climate change-related lawsuit to be tried to verdict nationally. Paul, Weiss is also advising ExxonMobil on government tort, shareholder securities and other climate change-related matters arising in various proceedings worldwide.
• The National Football League in:
  • the defense and landmark settlement, upheld on appeal, of hundreds of lawsuits filed by thousands of former NFL players seeking to hold the League liable for allegedly concealing the risks associated with concussions sustained while playing professional football. We continue to serve as counsel for the NFL in the implementation of the 65-years settlement.
  • litigation brought by former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden alleging that the NFL and its Commissioner intentionally leaked, or failed to prevent the leak of, his emails following the Wall Street Journal’s publication of certain racist, homophobic and sexist emails that Gruden wrote. Paul, Weiss achieved a major victory when the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Gruden was required to arbitrate his claims, reversing the lower court’s decision denying the NFL’s motion to compel arbitration.
• Qualcomm and NUVIA in securing a jury verdict in a closely watched breach of contract lawsuit brought by Arm, a UK-based semiconductor and software design company owned by SoftBank, alleging claims of trademark infringement and violations of NUVIA’s license agreements with Arm. Following a four-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, a jury found that that Qualcomm did not breach the terms of NUVIA’s chip architecture licensing agreement with Arm and that its chips were properly licensed. The case was worth tens of billions of dollars and had far-reaching consequences for innovation and competition.
• Citigroup in several major litigation and regulatory enforcement matters, including:
  • a complete defense win in an arbitral panel ruling, subsequently upheld by a federal district and an appellate court, in a $7.5 billion ICDR arbitration brought by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA);
  • a complete defense win in a $30 billion claim against Citigroup brought by Parmalat, and a $364.2 million jury verdict, upheld on appeal, on Citigroup’s counterclaims against Parmalat, culminating in a judgment by Italy’s Supreme Court finding our verdict, by then tripled in value, final and enforceable in Italy;
  • in securing the dismissal, affirmed on appeal at the Second Circuit, of an antitrust lawsuit alleging a conspiracy among major banks to boycott Tera Group Inc.’s credit default swap (CDS) trading platform, with the appellate court holding that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege a conspiracy;
  • in securing the dismissal of an antitrust action brought by financial software company Tera Group alleging that Citi, along with several other financial institutions, conspired to prevent Tera from entering the credit default swap (CDS) trading market in violation of federal and state antitrust laws;
  • in securing the dismissal of a qui tam action brought in Florida state court under the Florida False Claims Act in connection with two synthetic fixed-rate transactions with a notional value of $1 billion entered into by the Central Florida Expressway Authority with Citibank and several other banks. The relator alleged that the defendant banks fraudulently induced the Authority to enter into the at-issue swap agreements and claimed that all payments made to the defendant banks constituted “false claims;” and
  • a significant victory securing the denial of class certification in multidistrict litigation alleging that Citi and various other banks conspired in a group boycott to reduce competition in interest-rate swap trading.
• IBM in:
  • winning an injunction at trial, affirmed on appeal by the Second Circuit, in a high-profile trade secrets case that prohibited a former senior executive from accepting a competing leadership position at a competing technology company. Paul, Weiss has represented IBM in several previous high-profile litigations and settlements regarding the enforcement of employee restrictive covenants, non-competition agreements and equity clawback contracts; and
  • a lawsuit seeking at least $2.5 billion in damages brought against its semiconductor chip supplier, GlobalFoundries, asserting claims for fraud and breach of technology, development, manufacturing and supply agreements related to a long-term alliance IBM entered into with GlobalFoundries through which the parties committed to co-develop cutting-edge technology for complex semiconductor chips.
• Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM) in a significant appellate win in which the Kentucky Court of Appeals unanimously held that the Kentucky attorney general should never have been permitted to intervene in and revive a $50 billion derivative action in which the original plaintiffs were found to lack constitutional standing. Paul, Weiss previously won an appellate victory in the Kentucky Court of Appeals in connection with this lawsuit, which is seen as a critical test case for the exposure of investment managers to liability relating to underfunded state public pensions.
• Amazon in securing the dismissal of a major antitrust lawsuit filed by the D.C. Attorney General challenging Amazon’s pricing policies nationwide. Paul, Weiss won a further victory when the D.C. Superior Court denied the District’s motion for reconsideration and denied the District’s motion to further amend its complaint. The lawsuit is the first brought by a government entity in the United States challenging Amazon’s pricing policies and business model.
• Goldman Sachs Group as co-lead counsel in a billion-dollar, long-running securities class action filed in the wake of a 2010 SEC action alleging that Goldman Sachs helped a client short a collateralized debt obligation that the bank was simultaneously selling to customers, ultimately losing those customers $1 billion. After securing an important U.S. Supreme Court decision, Paul Weiss won a major victory at the Second Circuit when the panel unanimously reversed certification of the investor class action and instructed the district court to decertify the class. The plaintiffs subsequently declined a last chance to appeal Goldman’s resounding appellate win and voluntarily dismissed their case, bringing a decade of hard-fought litigation to a close.
• Morgan Stanley in multiple high-stakes class actions, including in:
  • securing the dismissal of a class action alleging that several financial institutions that participate in the auction and trading of securities issued by the U.S. Treasury had conspired to reduce competition in the secondary market for Treasury securities, and colluded to block the emergence of new trading platforms through which better prices could ostensibly have been obtained for Treasury securities;
  • securing the dismissal of a putative antitrust class action brought by traders of odd-lot bonds—groups of bonds that are worth less than $1 million—alleging that 10 financial institution defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to increase prices on odd-lot bond trades by group boycotting certain odd-lot e-trading platforms; and
  • the favorable settlement of a consolidated class action asserting claims of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair and deceptive practices, among others, and alleging that Morgan Stanley exposed their personal identifiable information by employing inadequate data security and vendor management procedures during a large-scale data security decommissioning project and a server refresh project.
• JPMorgan and its directors in securing the dismissal with prejudice of a derivative action brought by a pension fund alleging that the defendants breached fiduciary duties of oversight in connection with former JPMorgan client Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity.
• Ripple, its co-founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse in winning a significant victory in the SEC’s lawsuit alleging that the defendants had altogether conducted over $2.6 billion in unregistered securities transactions through sales of digital asset XRP, and further alleging that the two executives aided and abetted Ripple’s sales in violation of U.S. securities laws. Following a significant summary judgment victory in which the court held that the sale of XRP on public exchanges did not constitute the sale of unregistered securities, the SEC filed for a rare voluntary dismissal of the remaining aiding and abetting claims against the individual defendants, eliminating the need for a trial and resulting in a complete victory for the individual defendants.
• Oracle as trial counsel in its long-running dispute with software services provider Rimini Street over whether Rimini’s third-party software support violates Oracle’s copyrights. In Rimini II, Paul, Weiss won a major bench trial victory when the court issued a broad injunction order in July 2023 that ordered Rimini to shut down its automated tools—a significant part of its software support business—and issue and prominently post a 15-point press release in which Rimini discloses its untruths to the public. In Rimini I, our lawyers won a significant trial verdict in 2015, sustained on appeal, ultimately receiving $90 million in damages, costs and attorneys’ fees for copyright infringement. We also subsequently won a permanent injunction barring Rimini’s infringement, and then won a contempt hearing finding Rimini in violation of that injunction in 2021.
• Snap, Inc. and several of its directors and executives in the dismissal of a securities class action alleging that Snap had defrauded its investors in connection with Apple’s 2021 rollout of privacy changes to its iPhone operating system. After the court granted the defendants’ second motion to dismiss, the lead plaintiff asked that the case be dismissed with prejudice. The court dismissed the case with prejudice three days later.
• General Electric in litigation and the successful settlement of a billion-dollar trade secrets misappropriation lawsuit against Siemens, a direct competitor in the gas turbine industry.