A recent ruling allowing Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to continue representing Google in antitrust litigation, despite not seeking a waiver from former client Yelp, shows it takes more than alleging an inherent client conflict to get a large firm kicked off a case.
Nonparties Yelp and News/Media Alliance had filed a motion to disqualify the Am Law 50 firm, with Yelp arguing that it retained Paul Weiss in 2016 to provide legal counsel on several antitrust matters. That representation, Yelp argued, included communications between counsel and federal antitrust enforcement officials regarding Google’s business practices and how that alleged conduct impacted Yelp’s business decisions, according to the opinion filed Oct. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
