As we let you know yesterday, we’re doing something a little different this week. The nominations for Litigator of the Week that landed during last week’s cycle were so plentiful and impressive that we decided against lumping them in with this week’s batch. Yesterday morning we shouted out a bunch of impressive results that landed in that window from March 29 to April 5. This morning we’re bringing you the Runners Up from that stretch and crowning our first Litigators of the (Past) Week.
First up is a joint team of lawyers from Clement & Murphy, Kirkland & Ellis, Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick and King & Spalding who scored a major victory for plaintiffs in a pair of long-running breach of contract lawsuits against the Republic of Argentina over its nationalization of the gas and oil company YPF. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan late last month granted summary judgment to plaintiffs Petersen Energia and Eton Park Capital Management on the question of liability finding there “no question of fact” about whether Argentina breached two key sections of YPF’s bylaws when retaking control of the company in 2012. Although the ruling leaves open the question of damages, the stock of litigation funder Burford Capital, which has a significant stake in the case’s outcome, surged 30% before trading was halted on the day of the ruling. The team that signed off on the plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion included Paul Clement and C. Harker Rhodes IV of Clement & Murphy, Kirkland’s George Hicks Jr., Kellogg, Hansen’s Mark Hansen, Derek Ho and Andrew Goldsmith, and King & Spalding’s Reginald Smith, Israel Dahan and Laura Harris. Significantly, the judge also granted summary judgment to YPF finding the company wasn’t obligated under its by-laws to force the Republic to make the required tender offer for outstanding shares—a victory for the company and its lawyers at Debevoise & Plimpton led by Mark Goodman and Shannon Selden.
