Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week
A Kirkland team led by partners Dale Cendali, Diana Torres, Allison Buchner, Lauren Schweitzer and Saghar Esfandiarifard earned a spot among this week's Law360 Legal Lions for securing a trademark litigation win for PepsiCo. In a separate and unrelated matter, partners Brian Ford and Paul Rezvani were also highlighted for advising Francisco Partners and TPG in connection with the purchase of New Relic.
Labaton Sucharow LLP, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Andrews & Springer LLC, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and Friedman Oster & Tejtel PLLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions after securing a $266.7 million fee award in Delaware Chancery Court.
The firms represented stockholder class attorneys in a suit that challenged Dell Technologies Inc.'s $23.9 billion stock swap in 2018. Monday's $266.7 million fee award was eclipsed only by the $285 million fee approved for attorneys in the derivative Americas Mining case in 2012.
The class is represented by Ned Weinberger, Domenico Minerva, Joseph Cotilletta, Nathaniel Blakney, Mark Richardson, Brendan Sullivan and Casimir O. Szustak of Labaton Sucharow, David M. Cooper, William C. Price, Silpa Maruri, Dominic J. Pody, George T. Phillips, Christine J. Chen and William R. Sears of Quinn Emanuel, Peter B. Andrews, Craig J. Springer, Christopher P. Quinn, David M. Sborz and Jackson E. Warren of Andrews & Springer, Chad Johnson, Noam Mandel, Desiree Cummings, Robert D. Gerson and Jonathan Zweig of Robbins Geller, and Jeremy S. Friedman, David F.E. Tejtel, Christopher M. Windover and Lindsay La Marca of Friedman Oster.
Brown Rudnick LLP, Otterbourg PC, Genova Burns LLC and Massey & Gail LLP roared July 28 when a New Jersey bankruptcy judge dismissed the Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson's talc unit. The judge ruled that the company's second attempt at addressing thousands of talc injury claims didn't meet the standards for financial distress. The official committee of talc claimants is represented by David J. Molton, Sunni P. Beville, Jeffrey L. Jonas, Michael Winograd, Eric R. Goodman and Susan Sieger-Grimm of Brown Rudnick, Melanie L. Cyganowski, Adam C. Silverstein and Jennifer S. Feeney of Otterbourg, Daniel M. Stolz, Donald W. Clarke and Matthew I.W. Baker of Genova Burns, and Jonathan S. Massey and Rachel S. Morse of Massey & Gail.
Crowell & Moring LLP and Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP on Tuesday worked to unhook Indian state-owned Antrix Corp. from a $1.3 billion arbitration award against it that favored shareholders of satellite company Devas Multimedia Private Ltd. A Ninth Circuit panel determined that because Antrix — the commercial division of India's space agency — is a "foreign state" for the purposes of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the entity must have certain "minimum contacts" in the United States for a U.S. court to have personal jurisdiction over it. Antrix is represented by Jennifer Salzman Romano, Thomas Michael Guiffré and Amanda Shafer Berman of Crowell & Moring, and Joseph D. Pizzurro, Kevin A. Meehan, Juan O. Perla and Marwa Farag of Curtis Mallet-Prevost.
Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Baker Botts LLP secured a win for PepsiCo on Wednesday after a maker of canned coffee drinks contended that the beverage giant's "Mtn Dew Rise" energy drink infringed its trademark rights. Following a July 2022 Second Circuit ruling that found Rise Brewing Co.'s mark to be weak and dissimilar to PepsiCo's mark, a New York federal judge issued a summary judgment order in the beverage giant's favor. PepsiCo is represented by Dale M. Cendali, Diana Torres, Allison W. Buchner, Lauren Schweitzer and Saghar Esfandiarifard of Kirkland & Ellis, and Paul J. Reilly, Susan Kennedy and Monica H. Smith of Baker Botts.
Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP steered biotechnology company Biogen Inc.'s purchase of biopharmaceutical company Reata Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a cash deal with an enterprise value of roughly $7.3 billion, according to a July 28 announcement. The Cravath team advising Biogen included Faiza J. Saeed, Margaret T. Segall, Jonathan J. Katz, Matthew Morreale, David J. Kappos, Lauren Angelilli, George E. Zobitz, Mark I. Greene, Aaron M. Gruber and Bethany A. Pfalzgraf. The V&E team advising Reata included Lande Spottswood, Robert Kimball, Katherine Frank and Sang Lee. The Fried Frank team advising Biogen's financial adviser, Lazard, included Philip Richter, Roy Tannenbaum and Tomer Levinger. The Skadden Arps team advising Reata's financial adviser, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC. The Skadden team advising Goldman Sachs includes M&A partners Christopher Barlow, Paul Schnell, Gurjot Kaur and Beliard Domond.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, Kirkland and Latham & Watkins LLP round out this week's pride after advising the entities involved in the purchase of New Relic by private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG, in a deal announced Monday that values the web analytics firm at $6.5 billion. Francisco Partners and TPG were advised by Oliver Smith and Darren M. Schweiger of Davis Polk, Mike Kennedy and Jeff Wolf of Paul Hastings, and Brian Ford and Paul Rezvani of Kirkland. The Latham team representing New Relic included Tad Freese and Mark Bekheit.
