Landmark US antitrust class action victory
We represented pharmaceutical manufacturer Allergan in winning decertification of a US$400 million antitrust monopolization consumer class action involving its drug Asacol, effectively ending the case.
Using novel Seventh Amendment and due process arguments to challenge the common orthodoxy of class action proof of injury, we convinced the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to hear our expedited appeal on the eve of trial. The First Circuit held that the District Court’s procedure for removing uninjured class members by means of mere post-trial affidavits violated the Seventh Amendment to the US Constitution. On remand, the District Court refused to certify a small class of health insurers.
The Asacol ruling has been cited extensively and is likely to mean fewer class action suits, not only for pharmaceutical companies, but in all industries. In addition, the ruling reinforces the importance of a defendant’s right to confront its accuser in a civil trial, an important due process right and a check on excessive class action litigation.
Victory in first-ever five-arbitrator ICC arbitration
We represented PT Ventures (PTV), a subsidiary of the Brazilian telecommunications company Oi S.A., in an ICC arbitration regarding PTV’s shareholding in Angolan telecommunications company Unitel. The arbitration, the first ever to be heard by a five-arbitrator panel of the ICC, involved a battle for Unitel’s control, pitting PTV against the three other shareholders—all owned by members of Angola’s political/military elite. The tribunal ordered the other shareholders to pay PTV more than US$750 million and dismissed the counterclaim against PTV.
Facebook win against hate group
We represented Facebook Ireland Ltd. in a litigation brought against it by a designated hate group for having removed the group’s pages from the site. The Paris First Instance Court dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds, finding that the plaintiff associations—part of the Identitarian movement—could not rely on French law’s consumer jurisdiction privilege, because the privilege is not available to non-consumers under Brussels I Recast, which governed jurisdiction between the French plaintiffs and Facebook Ireland.
Landmark tax ruling at ECJ
We represented the College Pension Plan of British Columbia in a tax dispute before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in which the ECJ ruled that pension funds from non-EU countries must not be treated less favorably than EU funds for income tax purposes.
Uzbekistan defeats billion-dollar claim
We won a victory for the Republic of Uzbekistan when the Paris Court of Appeal rejected US mining company Oxus Gold’s effort to revive its billion-dollar Uzbekistan-UK BIT claim against Uzbekistan, the final award for which was rendered in 2015 in an UNCITRAL arbitration.
US$356 million arbitration award confirmed
We represented Ioan Micula and the companies in which he invested in a US District Court for the District of Columbia victory in which the court confirmed a 2013 US$356 million ICSID award to Micula and his companies resulting from a claim under the Sweden-Romania bilateral investment treaty and arising out of Romania’s repeal of investment incentives that the Micula brothers had relied on when investing.
High Court victory for Sandoz
We represented Sandoz in its victory in the English High Court. It ruled that Sandoz’s purple AirFluSal Forspiro respiratory inhaler was not misrepresentative as to either trade origin or therapeutic equivalence to GSK’s purple Seretide Accuhaler inhaler. The judgment is a significant precedent for generic pharmaceutical companies in their fight against originators spurious passing off claims aimed at blocking generic competition in the market.
US$1 billion of exposure in Loestrin litigation eliminated
We represented Warner Chilcott and Watson (now owned by Allergan) in defeating class certification in an antitrust class action in US District Court for the District of Rhode Island regarding the oral contraceptive Loestrin 24.
Building on the precedent created by our earlier victory in the First Circuit in the Asacol litigation, we showed that the proposed class included a massive number of uninjured consumers, making the class untenable. The Court’s rejection of the consumer class resulted in elimination of claimed damages of approximately US$1 billion (the maximum consumer damages sought).
Servier in first dominance victory before EU General Court
We successfully represented leading French pharmaceutical company Servier in a high-profile challenge against a decision of the European Commission concerning patent settlement agreements.
The Ninth Chamber of the EU General Court overturned all the findings of abuse of dominance under Article 102 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and reduced the fine on Servier by more than €100 million. This victory is the first time that a Commission Decision under Article 102 TFEU has been fully overturned since the 1970s.
Republic of Sudan victory at US Supreme Court
We represented the Republic of Sudan in its victory at the US Supreme Court, which ruled that foreign countries sued in US courts must be served directly in their home jurisdictions and not through their US-based embassies. The ruling upended a US$315 million default judgment against Sudan for the USS Cole attack by Al Qaeda in 2000.
State of New York wins US$1 billion-plus casino revenues dispute
We represented the State of New York in winning an arbitral award against the Seneca Nation of Indians (a sovereign Native American tribe operating three New York casinos) regarding its ongoing failure to share its casino revenues with the State under the parties’ 2002 Gaming Compact. Payments are likely to exceed US$1 billion.
Double victory for European steel industry
We represented the European steel industry (Eurofer) in defeating two challenges to an EU regulation imposing anti-dumping duties on imports of stainless steel cold-rolled flat products originating in China and Taiwan.
In 2015, the EU imposed duties on a Chinese company and a Taiwanese company after we filed a dumping complaint on Eurofer’s behalf. The companies then sought to annul the duties at the EU General Court, where we represented Eurofer in defending the legality of the duties alongside the European Commission.
In 2019, the European Court of Justice upheld the General Court’s 2018 dismissal of the Chinese company’s application, and the General Court dismissed the Taiwanese company’s application.
Victory for Chinese banks
We represented five Chinese banks in an action seeking US$150 million in contempt sanctions against them in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. An assignee to a US$1 billion-plus judgment obtained by Nike against Chinese counterfeit goods demanded that the banks produce the counterfeiters’ Chinese bank account information and restrain those accounts pursuant to US discovery and asset freeze orders.
The assignee moved for sanctions based on the banks’ purported non-compliance with the orders. The Court denied the motion, holding that the banks’ China branches were not legally subject to the asset restraints.
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