Our first runners-up this week are David Pinsky, Marney Cheek and Jeremy Wilson of Covington & Burling. They led a team representing Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state-owned oil and gas company, in securing a $5 billion award from Russia stemming from assets seized in the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The Covington team previously represented Naftogaz in securing wins in the jurisdictional and merits phases of the multiyear proceeding. The damages phase, conducted before a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, coincided with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Runners-up honors also go to a separate Covington team led by Emily Ullman. California’s First District Court of Appeal this week upheld the firm’s trial court win for AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and McKesson knocking out cases consolidated in California state court alleging that diabetes medications Onglyza and Kombiglyze XR can lead to heart failure and other cardiovascular problems. The appellate court upheld rulings excluding the plaintiffs’ causation experts and granting the defendants summary judgment due to a lack of viable testimony on general causation. The Covington team on the appeal included Jeffrey Davidson, Paul Schmidt and Phyllis Jones.
