A quartet of firms—Gibbons P.C.; Kirkland & Ellis; Klingeman Cerimele; and Paul Hastings—won a stunning reversal of criminal convictions for four executives of Wilmington Trust Corp. in a case dating back to the Great Recession. The executives were charged with making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve by excluding certain commercial real estate loans from those it reported as “past due.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit this week tossed the convictions on Tuesday finding that the definition of when a loan is “past due” was ambiguous, and in such cases the government bears the burden of proving falsity under each objectively reasonable interpretation of a reporting requirement. George Hicks of Kirkland, Lawrence Lustberg of Gibbons and Klingeman Cerimele’s Henry Klingeman handled oral arguments at the Third Circuit for the defendants. Kenneth Breen and Phara Guberman of Paul Hastings, meanwhile, have represented former Wilmington Trust CFO David Gibson for more than 10 years, including at trial.
A shout out goes to a team Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Partners David Herrington, Nowell Bamberger and Joon Hyun Kim landed a runner-up spot back in July in a trade secrets win for client Medytox before an administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission. On Wednesday the full ITC adopted key portions of the ALJ’s decision finding that Daewoong Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. and Evolus Inc. violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 through misappropriation of trade secrets for a botulinum neurotoxin product. The ITC order excludes Daewoong’s products Nabota and Jeuveau from the US market for 21 months and prevents its U.S. partner Evolus from selling any of its remaining inventory of infringing products during that time within the U.S. Allergan, which is represented by counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, also lodged a complaint at the ITC against the defendants.
