Runners-up honors go to a team at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel led by partners Debra Greenberger, Julia Kuan and Matthew Brinckerhoff. Last week U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan signed off on a class action settlement set to pay out more than $100 million to people who experienced a delay in their release after paying bail when detained by the New York City Department of Corrections. Nearly 30,000 people are set to receive at least $3,500 from the settlement, but that number could climb since claims can be submitted until at least early December. The plaintiffs’ team also included Emery Celli of counsel Vasudha Talla, paralegal Carlos Martínez-Montes, as well as co-class counsel at Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz & Frick.
Runners-up honors go to lawyers at Latham & Watkins who got a win at the Third Circuit this week upholding U.S. Sugar’s trial court win fending off a DOJ challenge to the company’s $315 million acquisition of Imperial Sugar Co., which was represented by lawyers at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. The DOJ alleged that allowing Florida-based U.S. Sugar to purchase Imperial’s Georgia-based refinery would leave only two entities in control of 75% of refined sugar sales in the Southeast. This week’s ruling upheld a decision from last September by U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika in Delaware who found the government overlooked the deal’s procompetitive effects and improperly defined the relevant geographic market without considering the high mobility of sugar. The Latham team representing U.S. Sugar included partners Larry Buterman, Melissa Arbus Sherry, who argued the appeal, Chris Yates, Amanda Reeves, Jennifer Giordano, Lindsey Champlin, Kelly Fayne, counsel Elyse Greenwald, and associates Molly Barron, David Johnson, Charlie Dameron, Chris Brown, Matthew Piehl, Jesse Vella, Leah Wisser, Graham Haviland, Christine Greeley and Saffa Khan. The Cravath team representing Imperial Sugar was led by partners Christine Varney, Timothy Cameron, Daniel Zach, Peter Barbur, David Marriott and Michael Zaken.
