Landing the first runner-up spot this week is a team from Latham & Watkins who defended American Airlines from an attempt to undo its 2013 merger with US Airways. The firm fended off TRO and injunction attempts from private plaintiffs to block the merger back at the time, but U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane held a weeklong bench trial in what remained of the case in March 2019. Lane rendered a long-awaited decision this week finding that the plaintiffs hadn’t met their burden to show that the merger substantially dampened competition in the passenger airline market. Latham partners Dan Wall and Sadik Huseny and associates Britt Lovejoy, Aaron Chiu and Robin Gushman all had standup roles at trial.
One of last week’s runners-up wasted no time getting another win—or two, actually. We told you last week about how Atif Khawaja and Jeremy Fielding of Kirkland & Ellis fought off an attempt by mortgage Lender Caliber Home Loans to force their client Sagent M&C to perform under the terms of a short-term contract renewal. They had successfully argued in Dallas County, Texas District Court that the renewal was procured based on the false representation that the deal would lead Sagent to land more of Caliber’s business when Caliber, in fact, had signed a long term deal with a competitor. Well, the day after that ruling Caliber brought on new lawyers to file an accelerated appeal at the Texas Fifth Circuit of Appeals. After expedited briefing, the appellate court denied Caliber’s emergency bid to force Sagent to provide services and routed the dispute back to the trial court. The same day as that ruling, Caliber filed an amended complaint and TRO request back at the trial court, which the presiding judge denied.
