Appellate Litigation

Select experience:

PREPA
Secured a major victory in the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on behalf of GoldenTree Asset Management LP and other bondholders of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), appealing a ruling that their bonds were unsecured and entitled to a claim of only US$2.4 billion. The First Circuit ruled that the bondholders have an unavoidable US$8.5 billion claim secured by the net revenues of the utility. This consequential decision has been consistently reported as restoring confidence in the market for special revenue bonds.

Anthem
Represented Anthem in its landmark trial and appellate victory against Cigna Corp stemming from the failed US$54 billion acquisition – one of the hardest-fought broken deal disputes in US history.

Varsity Blues
Achieved what the New York Times called a “stunning reversal” with a high-profile appellate victory in the “Varsity Blues” college-admissions case in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. We obtained a reversal on seven out of eight charges against defendant John Wilson, including all of the fraud and bribery convictions underlying the “Varsity Blues” scheme.

SOC, LLC 
Secured a path-marking win in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, establishing a new test for when federal contractors can remove cases against them from state to federal court under the so-called “federal officer removal statute.”

AbbVie Inc. and Other Pharmaceutical Companies 
Secured a victory in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of AbbVie and generic manufacturers of the hypertension drug Bystolic. The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's judgment of dismissal with prejudice of all claims brought against the manufacturers, citing a lack of evidence. This win is the first time the Second Circuit applied the US Supreme Court’s Actavis standard since 2013.

Samsung Bioepis – Humira®
Achieved a unanimous victory for Samsung Bioepis in the Seventh Circuit appeal relating to the blockbuster drug Humira®. This groundbreaking case rejected the application of Actavis to global settlements of biologic/biosimilar patent litigation, holding that the multiple early-entry settlements are legal “traditional” settlements that could not be characterized as “pay for delay.” The case alleges a novel “patent thicket” monopolization claim related to Humira, which was similarly dismissed by the District Court.

Apex Clearing Corporation
Led Apex Clearing Corporation to successfully secure a dismissal of all claims in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in which traders brought a class action against Apex Clearing Corporation arising from the January 2021 “meme stock” frenzy.

Nestlé Purina
Represented defendant Purina PetCare Company in a pending case before the US Supreme Court. The court’s choice to grant review is particularly important because the decision involves issues of federalism, comity and forum manipulation that the Eighth Circuit wholly disregarded in its decision.

Hilcorp, Inc. 
Obtained a precedent-setting fuel gas royalty class action in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The class action complaint filed by royalty owners alleged underpaid royalties on natural gas production. The court sided with Hilcorp, resolving a longstanding issue surrounding “fuel gas” royalties and their calculation in the context of mineral leases.

International Finance Corporation
Achieved a first-of-its-kind victory for International Finance Corporation, first in the US District Court for the District of Columbia and then in the DC Circuit, the latter of which issued the first published decision from a US Court of Appeals in which the court applied the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to international organizations. Collectively, the decisions preserved immunity from suit for our client and other multi-development banks for the management of projects overseas.

Hangar Orthopedic Group
Obtained a dismissal of the case against the company and its CEO and CFO and succeeded on appeal in what became the seminal case on pleading standards for securities fraud cases in the Fourth Circuit of Appeals.

TaxiNet, Corp. 
Secured a win in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, affirming an order vacating a US$300 million jury verdict on behalf of our client, a former Mexico City congressman. The appeals court unanimously upheld a Florida federal judge’s determination stemming from the trial in 2021.

Toshiba Corporation
Successfully defended Toshiba against Automotive Industries Pension Trust Fund, which challenges the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the district court's dismissal of a class-action suit premised on the extraterritorial application of the US securities laws based on unsponsored American Depositary Receipts (ADRs).