Our first runners-up this week are the plaintiffs’ teams who pursued claims against Allianz Global Investors tied to losses racked up by its Structured Alpha Funds during the COVID-driven market panic in early 2020 when the company’s options trades went south. Notices of dismissal began hitting the dockets this week in suits brought by about a dozen public pension funds and other institutional investors. The company previously disclosed last month that it was setting aside €3.7 billion, or equivalent to $4.2 billion, for legal expenses tied to the fund losses. A team led by Sean Gallagher at Bartlit Beck represented clients including the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association National Employee Benefits Committee and the Raytheon Technologies Corporation Pension Administration and Investment Committee. The Bartlit Beck team included Abby Mollen, Mark Ouweleen, Nico Martinez and Dawson Robinson as well as co-counsel Daniel Goldman of Petrillo Klein & Boxer. A team at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann has represented clients including the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System and The Ohio State University. The Bernstein Litowitz team has included partners Max Berger, Hannah Ross, Jim Harrod, Avi Josefson and Michael Blatchley; senior counsel Michael Mathai, Rich Gluck and John Esmay, and associate Tom Sperber. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state’s teacher retirement system, which is represented by Bernstein Litowitz, landed a $642.8 million settlement with Allianz. The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System had additional counsel at Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer, including Frederic Fox, Donald Hall, Melinda Campbell and Aaron Schwartz.
Also getting a runner-up nod this week is a team at Haynes and Boone led by partner Ben Mesches. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas revived a lawsuit brought by the firm’s client, Panda Power Generation Infrastructure Fund, against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the nonprofit corporation that operates the grid that provides electricity to about 90 percent of Texas. The court found that sovereign immunity does not extend to private entities like ERCOT. That decision will allow Panda Power to pursue claims that it relied on allegedly false information ERCOT provided about potential power-supply scarcity when it decided to invest $2.2 billion to build three new power plants. The ruling also has potential repercussions in separate litigation against ERCOT spinning out of last year’s Winter Storm Uri. The Haynes and Boone team included Leslie Thorne, Werner Powers, Andrew Guthrie and Christopher Knight.
