Runners-up honors go to a team at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom that won a ruling knocking out antitrust claims against their client, Caesars Entertainment Inc., as well as Wynn, MGM, and Treasure Island alleging the companies conspired to adopt algorithmic pricing suggestions provided by the Rainmaker Group subsidiary of software company Cendyn for Las Vegas strip hotel rooms. Chief U.S District Judge Miranda Du in Las Vegas this week granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in the first algorithmic pricing case to reach this stage. The judge found the complaint had “numerous pleading deficiencies,” including that it failed to plausibly allege that the hotelier defendants adopted prices suggested by Rainmaker’s algorithms. The Skadden team included Boris Bershteyn, who argued the motion to dismiss on behalf of all defendants, Michael Menitove, Kenneth Schwartz, Sammuel Auld and Thomas (T.J.) Smith. The rest of the defense line-up includes Munger, Tolles & Olson and Pisanelli Bice for MGM, Latham & Watkins and Campbell & Williams for Cendyn, Goodwin Procter and Holley Driggs for The Rainmaker Group, McDonald Carano for Caesars, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck for Treasure Island, and Kirkland & Ellis and Snell & Wilmer for Wynn.
A BraunHagey & Borden trial team lands runners-up honors for winning a $21 million verdict in California state court for Smashmallow, a snack brand launched in 2016. Jurors in Sonoma County Superior Court found last week that Dutch company Tanis Food Tec B.V. breached its contract with Smashmallow by providing a faulty custom machine that was aimed at scaling up production. Smashmallow instead ceased operations and terminated its employees. Jurors awarded Smashmallow $6.66 million in past losses, including costs for the Tanis production line, and nearly $14.3 million in future losses. The trial team included Ellen Leonida, who acted as lead counsel, David Kwasniewski, Shirley Chan and paralegal Winni Yan.
