Deals & Suits

Corporate Counsel

07-01-2012

Guggenheim Baseball
Los Angeles Dogers

Earvin "Magic" Johnson helped transform the Los Angeles Lakers as a basketball player in the 1980s, and he's part of a group of investors who are poised to do the same thing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Guggenheim Baseball Management LLC agreed on March 28 to pay $2 billion to buy the major league baseball team out of bankruptcy in the largest deal ever for an American professional sports franchise. Guggenheim will pay $1.6 billion in cash and assume $400 million in debt for the Dodgers, who filed for Chapter 11 in June 2011. The new owners will also team up with their predecessor Frank McCourt to buy the parking lots around Dodger Stadium for $150 million.

Johnson is Guggenheim's most famous member, but the acquisition vehicle takes its name from New York financial services firm Guggenheim Partners LLC, whose CEO, Mark Walter, and president, Todd Boehly, are the money men in the group. Stan Kasten, a former president of the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, is providing the baseball expertise, with Mandalay Entertainment Group CEO Peter Guber and oil and gas investor Bobby Patton rounding out the partnership.

The group outbid a cast of rich rivals for the Dodgers. Other financial services moguls bid for the team, including hedge fund impresario Steven Cohen, Los Angeles real estate investor Alan Casden, Ares Management LLC cofounder Anthony Ressler, and Michael Heisley, who made his fortune turning around midwestern manufacturing businesses. Ressler and Heisley ended up making a joint bid. E. Stanley Kroenke, who married a daughter of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cofounder James "Bud" Walton and owns several pro sports franchises, tried to add to that collection. Also vying for the Dodgers was Stanley Gold, the president and CEO of Shamrock Holdings Inc., the investment vehicle of the Roy Disney family, which put its financial and political capital behind Gold's offer. South Korean conglomerate E-Land Group rounded out the survivors of an initial round of bidding.

The lure for the suitors was the potentially enormous cable television contract the Dodgers will sign when their current deal with Fox Sports expires after the 2013 season. In June 2011 Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, rejected the team's proposed $3 billion contract with Fox, which is a unit of News Corporation. Selig's decision nullified the divorce settlement that Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and his wife, Jamie, had reached, and the team filed for Chapter 11 on June 27.

Despite McCourt's misadventures, he will reportedly make as much as $1 billion on the sale of the franchise he bought for $430 million in 2004. Chief Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington confirmed the plan on April 13, court papers show. The deal closed on May 1.

For acquiror Guggenheim Baseball Management LLC

In-House:

At Guggenheim Partners LLC: chief legal officer David Korman and director Benjamin Goodman.

Foley & Lardner:

Sports industry: Robert DuPuy, Irwin Raij, and associate Erick Harris. Corporate: Jason Barglow, Kevin Schulz, senior counsel Christopher Rasmussen, and associate Teri Champ. Tax: John Palmer. Bankruptcy: Judy O'Neill and Michael Small. Finance: Nathaniel Blair. (DuPuy is in New York. Raij and Champ are in Washington, D.C. Harris, Rasmussen, Palmer, and Small are in Chicago. Barglow is in Los Angeles. Schulz and Blair are in Milwaukee. O'Neill is in Detroit.) Stan Kasten of the Guggenheim group was president of the Washington Nationals baseball team, one of Raij's clients, from 2006 to 2010, and has been named Dodgers president. DuPuy rejoined Foley & Lardner last year, 13 years after he left to become MLB's chief legal counsel. He later became MLB's president and chief operating officer.

DLA Piper:

Real estate: Michael Meyer, Marshall Taylor, and asso­ciate Gwendolyn Chen. (All are in Los Angeles.)

For losing bidder Alan Casden

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips:

Thomas Leary and Robert Platt. (Leary is in Costa Mesa, California. Platt is in Los Angeles.) Fredric Rosen, the former CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., introduced Platt to Casden in the 1980s, and Platt has represented Casden on his real estate activities for almost 25 years. Platt has also been the general counsel of the Los Angeles Clippers since 1988.

For losing bidder Steven Cohen

In-House:

At S.A.C. Capital Management Inc.: General counsel Peter Nussbaum and legal counsel Christopher Rosado and Steven Spencer. S.A.C. is based in Stamford, Connecticut.

Munger, Tolles & Olson:

Robert Knauss and Ronald Olson. Real estate: Jeffrey Heintz and asso­ciate Misty Sanford. (All are in Los Angeles.) The assignment came from Arn Tellum, a sports agent who was also part of the Cohen group and would likely have run the Dodgers had the Cohen group acquired the team.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher:

Corporate: Leslie Mazza, Robert Stebbins, and associates Howard Block and Matthew Guercio. Bankruptcy: Matthew Feldman and Paul Shalhoub. (All are in New York.) Willkie and Stebbins have advised Cohen and his investment firm since 1995. Stebbins has previously represented the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball on various issues, including the purchase of the Montreal Expos in 2002 by Major League Baseball and the sale of the team in 2005 to a group led by Theodore Lerner, which moved the team to Washington, D.C., and renamed it the Nationals.

For losing bidder E-Land Group (Seoul)

Latham & Watkins:

Corporate: James Gorton, W. Alex Voxman, Scott Wolfe, and asso­ciate Stephen Amdur. Intellectual property: counsel Franklin Kang. Tax: Laurence Seymour. Bankruptcy: Robert Klyman. Real estate finance: Stephanie Kuhlen. (All are in Los Angeles except for Gorton and Amdur, who are in New York, and Wolfe and Kuhlen, who are in San Diego.)

For losing bidders Stanley Gold and the Roy Disney family

Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown:

Gene Salomon. (He is in Beverly Hills.) Gold once practiced at the firm.

Latham & Watkins:

Corporate: James Beaubien, Bradley Helms, and Richard Wirthlin. Finance: Glen Collyer, Gregory Lunt, and David Meckler. Tax: Laurence Stein. Executive compensation and benefits: James Barrall. Intellectual property: counsel David Blood. (All are in Los Angeles except for Meckler, who is in Costa Mesa, California.)

For losing bidder Enos Stanley Kroenke

Irell & Manella:

Partner emeritus Milton Hyman. (He is in Los Angeles.) Hyman advised the National Football League's Los Angeles Rams on the sale of a 40 percent stake to Kroenke in 1995, the year the franchise moved to St. Louis. Irell also represented Dale Carroll "Chip" Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez on the sale of a 29 percent stake in the Rams to Kroenke in 2010, a deal that placed a $750 million valuation on the franchise.

SNR Denton:

Alan Bornstein. (He is in St. Louis.) Bornstein represented Kroenke on the Rams deals and on his $450 million purchase of the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association, the Denver Avalanche of the National Hockey League, and the Pepsi Center, the arena where both teams play, in 2000.

For losing bidders Michael Heisley and Anthony Ressler

In-House:

At Ares Management LLC: transaction partner Kevin Frankel. He was the lead for Ressler, who helped found Ares in 1997 and ended up teaming with Heisley.

Latham & Watkins:

Finance: David Rogers. Corporate: Robert O'Shea, Thomas Sadler, and Nadia Sager. Bankruptcy: Peter Gilhuly. Tax: Samuel Weiner. (All are in Los Angeles except for Sager, who is in San Diego.) Latham advised Ressler, a regular client.

McDermott Will & Emery:

M&A: Helen Friedli, Ryan Harris, Stanley Meadows, and asso­ciates Elijah Hammans and J. Cole Parker. Tax: Gary Karch. Finance: Michael Boykins and John Hammond. (All are in Chicago.) Meadows has represented Heisley since he bought his first business in 1979, the conglomerate Conco Inc., and advised him on the $160 million purchase of the Vancouver Grizzlies in 2000 and the team's move to Memphis the next year.

For seller Frank McCourt

Sullivan & Cromwell:

Real estate: Ivan Deutsch, Robert Schlein, and Joseph Shenker. Tax: Andrew Mason. Litigation: Adam Paris and Robert Sacks. Corporate: Eric Krautheimer. (All are in New York except for Paris, Sacks, and Krautheimer, who are in Los Angeles.) An S&C client recommended the firm to McCourt, who tapped Sullivan & Cromwell on his 2011 divorce settlement with Jamie McCourt and his settlement with Major League Baseball. S&C handled the real estate side of the transaction for McCourt.

Susman Godfrey:

Litigation: Matthew Berry, Victoria Cook, Ryan Kirkpatrick, Marc Seltzer, and Stephen Susman. (All are in Los Angeles except for Berry, who is in Seattle, and Susman, who is in New York.) Susman was the lead for Frank McCourt in his divorce from Jamie McCourt. Kirkpatrick took the lead on the bankruptcy, the settlement with Jamie McCourt, and the sales process. Bingham McCutchen recommended Susman to McCourt. Jamie McCourt used David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Dennis ­Wasser, a Los Angeles divorce lawyer.

Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis:

Real estate: Anton Natsis and associate Crystal Lofing. (Both are in Los Angeles.)

For target Los Angeles Dodgers LLC (Los Angeles)

In-House:

General counsel Sam Fernandez.

Dewey & LeBoeuf:

Bankruptcy: Bruce Bennett, Sidney Levinson, Joshua Mester, counsel Monika Wiener, and associates Xinlin Li, Michael Schneidereit, and Jason Wolf. M&A: Paul Chen, Richard "Rick" Climan, Eric Reifschneider, and associates Katharine Alexander and Colin Greenspon. Litigation: Matthew Walsh. (All were in Los Angeles except for the M&A lawyers, who were in Palo Alto.) Bennett was the team's bankruptcy counsel. He was referred by, among others, Sullivan & Cromwell. As Dewey moved toward dissolution, Bennett, Levinson, and Mester moved to Jones Day. Chen is now at DLA Piper. Climan joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Reifschneider is now at Qualcomm Incorporated. Walsh moved to Winston & Strawn.

Young Conaway Stargett & Taylor:

Bankruptcy: Robert Brady, Pauline Morgan, and associate Donald Bowman Jr. (All are in Wilmington.)

Covington & Burling:

Bankruptcy: Michael St. Patrick Baxter and associate Joshua McKarcher. Corporate: Douglas Gibson, Peter Zern, special counsel Scott Roades, and associate Leah Graham. Tax: Robert Heller. (All are in Washington, D.C., except for Heller, who is in New York.) The firm is special counsel to the Dodgers on the team's negotiations with Fox Sports. Alan Gold and Chris Bevilacqua of Creative Artist Agency Sports Media Ventures recommended the firm to the Dodgers, as did William Koenig, GC of the National Basketball Association. Bevilacqua has gone on to start his own shop, Bevilacqua Media Company. Covington then pitched Fernandez and Jeff Ingram, a senior executive at McCourt Broderick Limited Partnership.

For Major League Baseball (New York)

Proskauer Rose:

Litigation: Scott Cooper, Bradley Ruskin, and ­associates Michael Feldman, Robert Forbes, Sarah Kroll-Rosenbaum, and Shawn ­Ledingham Jr. Corporate: Jon Oram. Labor and employment: Howard Ganz. Bankruptcy: Jeffrey Levitan and Mark Thomas. (All are in New York except for ­Cooper, Forbes, Kroll-Rosenbaum, and Ledingham, who are in Los ­Angeles, and Thomas, who is in ­Chicago.) Proskauer has a strong sports law practice; NBA commissioner David Stern and NHL ­commissioner Gary Bettman both practiced there.

White & Case:

Bankruptcy: John Cunningham and Thomas ­Lauria. Litigation: Glenn Kurtz. (Cunningham and Lauria are in ­Miami. Kurtz is in New York.)

Fox Rothschild:

Bankruptcy: Jeffrey Schlerf, Eric Sutty, and associates L. John Bird and Carl Neff. (All are in Wilmington.)

For Fox Sports, a unit of News Corporation (New York)

Jenner & Block:

Litigation: Kenneth Klein and Richard Stone. Bankruptcy: Catherine Steege. (Klein and Stone are in Los Angeles. Steege is in Chicago.)

Barnes & Thornburg:

Bankruptcy: Paul Laurin and associate Christian Jordan. (Both are in Los Angeles.)

Morris, Nichols, Arsht & ­Tunnell:

Bankruptcy: Robert Dehney, Gregory Werkheiser, and asso­ciate Andrew Remming. (All are in Wilmington.)

For Dodgers unsecured creditors

Morrison & Foerster:

Bankruptcy: Todd Goren, Lorenzo Marinuzzi, and Brett Miller. Corporate: John Hempill and Spencer Klein. (All are in New York.)

Pinckney, Harris & Weidinger:

Bankruptcy: Donna Harris and asso­ciate Kevin Capuzzi. (They are in Wilmington.)

—David Marcus

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Nestlé
Pfizer Infant Nutrition Unit

Nestlé SA agreed to buy Pfizer Inc.'s infant nutrition unit for $11.85 billion in cash on April 23 in the largest M&A deal of the year involving a U.S. company. The deal would be the largest ever for Nestlé, which outbid Groupe Danone. A major producer of infant formula, the Pfizer division derives 85 percent of its revenues from emerging markets. It is particularly strong in Asia and the Middle East and would complement Nestlé's strength in Latin America.

Pfizer acquired the business as part of its $68 billion merger with Wyeth in 2009 but put the infant nutrition unit up for auction last summer along with its animal health business, for which it is also preparing an IPO [Deals & Suits, May 2009]. The companies hope to close the deal in the first half of 2013 pending regulatory approvals. Neither set of shareholders gets a vote.

For acquiror Nestlé SA (Vevey, Switzerland)

In-House:

General counsel Ricardo Cortés-Monroy, head of Legal M&A Competence Centre Philip Mellor, general counsel–Nestlé Nutrition Patrick Beringer, senior M&A counsel Jean Christophe Thiébaud, and senior competition counsel Marceline Tournier.

Mayer Brown:

M&A: John Boelter, David Carpenter, Marc Uhrynuk, and associates Zoë Badger, Sarah Lord, and Michael Torres. Antitrust: John Roberti and Adrian Steel Jr. Intellectual property: Richard Assmus. Tax: James Barry and Lee Morlock. (All are in Chicago except for Carpenter, Badger, and Lord, who are in New York; Uhrynuk, who is in Hong Kong; and Roberti and Steel, who are in Washington, D.C.) Mayer Brown advised Nestlé on its acquisition of Gerber from Novartis AG for $5.5 billion in 2007.

Calfee Halter & Griswold:

Employee benefits and executive compensation: Robert Miller, Brian Murray, associate Steven Day, and senior attorney Gretchen Rogge. (All are in Cleveland.)

Linklaters:

Corporate: Andrew Mackie, Sophie Mathur, and asso­ciates Raina Gray and Louise Teale. (Mackie and Teale are in London. Mathur and Gray are in Singapore.)

For seller Pfizer Inc. (New York)

In-House:

Corporate and transactional: associate general counsel Bryan Supran and senior corporate counsel Stephen Diamond and Alison O'Neill. Antitrust: assistant general counsel Marc Brotman and senior corporate counsel John McLeod. Tax: senior tax counsel Jerome Mychalowych. Business unit counsel: assistant general counsel Atiba Adams. Intellectual property: assistant general counsel Jeff Gold and Tiffany Trunko and senior corporate counsel Bruce Weintraub. Environmental: assistant general counsel Merrill Fliederbaum. Manufacturing: senior corporate counsel Brad Lewin. Real estate: assistant general counsel Bill Longa. Compliance and litigation: assistant general counsel Michael Friedland, Gary Giampetruzzi, and Helen Ong, and senior corporate counsel Karl Buch, Sarah Chopp, and Elaina Loizou.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom:

M&A: Steven Daniels, Paul Schnell, and Kenneth Wolff. Tax: Sally Thurston. Intellectual property and technology: Jose Estevez. Executive compensation and benefits: Regina Olshan. (All are in New York except for Daniels, who is in Wilmington.) Historically, Pfizer has turned to Dennis Block, now of Greenberg Traurig, for M&A advice on its largest deals. He represented the company on its combination with Wyeth.

Clifford Chance:

Antitrust: Tony Reeves. Corporate: Emma Davies and counsel Yip Ming Yen. (Reeves is in Brussels, Davies is in Shanghai, and Yen is in Singapore.)

DLA Piper:

Corporate: Sidney Burke, Jonathan Klein, counsel Nia Brown, and associates Gregory Chludzinski, Jason Durschlag, and Kira Mineroff. (All are in New York.) Pfizer general counsel Amy Schulman is a former DLA Piper partner.

—D.M.

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Arkansas v. J&J

Johnson & Johnson's problems over its antipsychotic drug Risperdal continue. On April 11 a Little Rock state court judge ordered the company to pay the state of Arkansas $1.2 billion. The order followed a jury verdict against J&J that found that Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. had defrauded the state's Medicaid program when it hid the risks associated with Risperdal.

The company has already announced an intention to appeal.

The Arkansas verdict is the fourth of six state attorney general Risperdal trials against J&J to date that have resulted in either a judgment for the plaintiff or a settlement. It also comes eight months after the company disclosed in August that it had reached an "agreement in principle" with the U.S. Department of Justice for a possible settlement of criminal misdemeanor charges related to its marketing of Risperdal. The agreement did not appear to cover related civil claims.

The attorney general's office said that plaintiffs counsel Bailey Perrin stands to receive a 15 percent contingency fee if the verdict stands. Defendants counsel Drinker Biddle challenged Bailey Perrin's contingency arrangement in similar Risperdal litigation brought by Pennsylvania's AG, arguing that the arrangement violated J&J's due process rights. But a state court judge rejected J&J's arguments in 2008, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the decision in August 2010.

For plaintiff the State of Arkansas

In-House:

At the attorney general's office: Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, Deputy Attorney General Brad Phelps, and Assistant Attorneys General Jean Black and Jay Shue.

Bailey Perrin Bailey:

Robert Cowan and Fletcher Trammell. (They are in Houston.) The firm was tapped on contingency; Trammell is handling other states' Risperdal suits. The firm won a $327.1 million jury verdit in a related South Carolina suit, now on appeal, about a year before the victory in this case.

For defendants Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, New Jersey) and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Titusville, New Jersey)

Drinker Biddle & Reath:

Thomas Campion, Gregg Mackuse, and Edward Posner. (Campion is in Florham Park, New Jersey; the rest are in Philadelphia.) The firm declined to comment further. Johnson & Johnson is a longtime major client of the firm.

Friday, Eldredge & Clark:

James Simpson and Laura Smith. (They are in Little Rock.) The firm was local counsel.

—Nate Raymond, with Tom Coster

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Olenicoff v. UBS, et al.

On April 10 a federal district court judge in Santa Ana, California, threw out a $1.7 billion fraud claim lodged by a billionaire real estate tycoon against UBS AG. The billionaire, Igor Olenicoff, alleged that the bank misled him into evading his tax obligations and managed his investments improperly.

Olenicoff, a Russian-born California property developer with an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion in 2007 and paid the government $52 million. Subsequently, in 2008, he sued the bank and a UBS employee, Bradley Birkenfeld, claiming that they fraudulently misled him into evading his tax obligations, among other allegations. (UBS admitted in 2009 to helping U.S. clients hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service in illegal offshore accounts [Deals & Suits, June 2009].)

U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford found plenty of reasons to grant UBS's motions for summary judgment, including Olenicoff's failure to prove damages and to meet the statutes of limitations on his fraud and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act claims. But Olenicoff's Achilles' heel, the judge noted in the decision, was his own prior guilty plea. In that plea, Olenicoff swore that he knew at the time that he needed to disclose to the IRS the taxable interest income from his UBS offshore accounts.

UBS argued, and the judge agreed, that it had only helped willing clients defraud the IRS and did not force doe-eyed innocents to evade their taxes. Judge Guilford also rejected Olenicoff's claims that UBS's Birkenfeld misled Olenicoff into investing in risky securities and then "churned" his investments for UBS's own benefit. The judge found that Olenicoff himself made $9 million on the ­investments.

For plaintiffs Igor Olenicoff and Olen Properties Corp. (Newport Beach, California)

In-House:

General counsel Julie Ault.

Newmeyer & Dillion:

Jennifer Lyons and Thomas Newmeyer. (They are in Newport Beach, California.)

For defendant UBS AG (Zurich)

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher:

Richard Doren, Dean Kitchens, and associates Kristopher Diulio, Lauren Eber, and Daniel Park. (Diulio is in Irvine, California; the rest are in Los Angeles.) The firm is also advising longtime client UBS on class actions and a global internal investigation into alleged manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate.

For defendant Bradley Birkenfeld

Law Office of John D. Cline:

John Cline. (He is in San Francisco.) The firm did not comment.

—David Bario, with T.C.

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Anvik v. Nikon

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on April 3 invalidated patents relating to LCD televisions that an inventor named Kanti Jain had been asserting against Nikon Corporation for close to seven years in federal district court in ­Manhattan.

Jain sued Nikon in 2005 through Anvik Corporation, a small company he founded, alleging that Nikon stole his idea for a lithographic machine that makes LCD panels. Jain, a professor at the University of Illinois, says that he approached Nikon executives about the technology in the early 1990s, before it became commonplace in the flat-screen television manufacturing industry. Jain's expert witness had pegged damages as high as $1.8 billion.

At a summary judgment hearing, Hellerstein invalidated Jain's patents, ruling that Jain ran afoul of the rarely cited "best mode" requirement of the Patent Act, which requires patentees to disclose the best-known method of practicing their claimed invention. The judge agreed with Nikon that Jain had admitted in a deposition that he failed to disclose the best mode of making an illumination system in his machine. The real best mode, the judge ruled, had actually been disclosed in Jain's application for an earlier patent not at issue in the case. Jain filed an appeal in mid-April.

For plaintiff Anvik Corporation (Hawthorne, New York) et al.

Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann: Chad Johnson, Joshua Raskin, and counsel Jai Chandrasekhar. (They are in New York.)

For defendant Nikon Corporation (Tokyo) et al.

Morrison & Foerster:

Eric Acker, Matthew D'Amore, Jack Londen, Harold McElhinny, and asso­ciates Mary Prendergast and Colette Verkuil. (Acker and Prendergast are in San Diego; D'Amore is in New York; Londen is in Tokyo; McElhinny is in San Francisco; and Verkuil is in Palo Alto.) The firm was trial counsel for Nikon in previous U.S. litigation and supervised related litigation in Asia.

—Jan Wolfe, with T.C.

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In Re General Electric Company Securities Litigation

Overturning a January decision by her predecessor, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan threw out most shareholder claims in a class action against General Electric Company, its officers and directors, and its underwriter banks on April 18. Shareholders alleged that GE and the others misled investors in the offering statements related to GE's October 2008 $12 billion stock offering.

Cote's decision knocks out the shareholders' case, filed in October 2009, against all 26 deep-pocketed underwriter defendants and 16 outside ­directors entirely, leaving in place only narrower claims against GE and former CFO Keith Sherin.

Defense counsel moved for reconsideration of the previous judge's order in January, arguing that the previous judge, now-retired U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell, had incorrectly admitted most shareholder claims on the basis of statements that weren't included in the offering documents, that he ignored subsequent disclosures that outlined risks to investors, and that any misleading statements in the offering documents weren't material. They also maintained that Judge Holwell was wrong to conclude that the defendants materially misstated the value of GE's assets.

Judge Cote agreed, finding that Holwell's opinion improperly relied on statements that were not in the offering documents, and on other statements modified and superseded by later statements. She also found that, though the complaint convincingly argues that GE's valuation was inflated, "nowhere does it make a plausible allegation as to how much this valuation was inflated and that this amount was material."

Defense counsel say that the decision is the first in the district to apply a 30-year-old Securities and Exchange Commission rule holding that registration statements don't have to explicitly disavow prior statements—in this case, more positive statements—related to a securities offering.

For lead plaintiff State Universities Retirement System of Illinois

Berman DeValerio:

Glen De­Valerio, Kathleen Donovan-Maher, Patrick Egan, Joseph Tabacco Jr., and counsel Kristin Moody. (Tabacco is in San Francisco; the rest are in Boston.)

Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart:

Richard Cohen. (He is in White Plains, New York.) The firm was appointed liaison counsel.

For defendant General Electric Company (Fairfield, Connecticut) et al.

In-House:

Senior counsel–litigation and legal policy Kate O'Leary.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges:

Greg Danilow, Paul Dutka, Christopher Garcia, and associates Ashish Gandhi, Eric Hawkins, and Caroline Zalka. (They are in New York.) The firm has represented GE in numerous litigation matters.

For underwriter defendants Goldman, Sachs & Co. (New York) et al.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher:

Richard Bernstein, Mei Lin Kwan-Gett, Antonio Yanez Jr., and associates James Fitzmaurice, Jennifer Greene, and Zheyao Li. (Bernstein is in Washington, D.C.; the rest are in New York.)

—David Bario, with T.C.