From left, partners Paul Curnin, litigation department co-chair, Linton Mann III, Brooke Cucinella, Susannah Geltman and Jon Youngwood, litigation department co-chair (Photo by David Handschuh/NYLJ)
What are some of the department’s most satisfying successes of the past year and why? Our finance litigation team has achieved extraordinary results this past year through carefully-crafted legal arguments, combined with a mastery of the relevant facts. For example, we defeated class certification in mutual fund-related litigation against UBS AG, and persuaded the Kentucky Court of Appeals to dismiss a lawsuit against Prisma Capital Partners and other major investment firms in connection with the Kentucky public pension crisis. We fended off an attempt to enjoin a refinancing transaction by Hovnanian Enterprises, and achieved an outstanding outcome for Chilean conglomerate Corp Group in an ICC arbitration concerning shareholder rights in a Columbian bank. We also procured a standards-defining appellate ruling in an RMBS litigation for Countrywide Home Loans.
We strive to win early dismissals of complex securities fraud class actions and defend those rulings on appeal. For instance, the Second Circuit recently affirmed dismissal of two high-profile securities fraud suits, one against La Quinta, and the other against the underwriters of Etsy’s IPO.
