Our first Litigator of the Week runners-up this week are Roberto Finzi and Richard Tarlowe of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Justin Weddle of Weddle Law. They achieved a remarkable turnaround for their clients, Anilesh “Neil” Ahuja, the founder and former CEO of hedge fund Premium Point Investments and former trader PPI trader Jeremy Shor. Ahuja and Shor faced sentences of 50 months and 40 months in prison respectively after a federal jury convicted them on securities fraud charges following a six-week trial in 2019. But after the defense team used a FOIA request to surface evidence that a federal prosecutor suggested revisions to the plea allocutions of government cooperators in their case, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan granted the defense lawyers’ request for a new trial late last year. Last week the judge signed off on a rare 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement binding her to time-served sentences agreed upon by the parties. With the initial surrender dates for the defendants pushed back due to the pandemic, the outcome means that neither served any prison time. John Del Monaco of Kirkland & Ellis served as co-counsel for Ahuja alongside the Paul Weiss lawyers. Shor was also represented by Julia Catania of Weddle Law.
Another runners-up spot goes to a team at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher led by Jason Mendro, Adam Offenhartz and Laura O’Boyle. The Fourth Circuit last week upheld the dismissal of a securities class action related to a major data breach targeting servers owned by their client Marriott International. The court noted that SEC guidance advises companies to avoid making detailed disclosures that ultimately could compromise cybersecurity efforts. “Marriott certainly could have provided more information to the public about its experience with or vulnerability to cyberattacks, but the federal securities laws did not require it to do so,” wrote Judge Toby Heytens for the unanimous Fourth Circuit panel. Mendro argued the appeal on behalf of the company and its executives. The Gibson Dunn team on the matter also includes Jeffrey Rosenberg, Andrei Malikov and Erica Sollazzo Payne.
