Quinn Emanuel has the most formidable plaintiffs’-side practice in the world.  The caliber of our legal talent, the resources we can bring to all aspects of the case, and our proven track record on the plaintiffs’-side are second to none.

When representing plaintiffs, our lawyers have won approximately $70 billion for our clients through judgments and settlements.  We have obtained five 9-figure jury verdicts, more than forty 9-figure settlements, and nineteen 10-figure settlements.  We have achieved success for our plaintiff clients in virtually every type of setting imaginable—including as part of class actions, as plaintiffs opting out from class actions to pursue individual claims, in group actions, and in solo actions.  We have achieved success for plaintiffs in federal and state courts, in bankruptcy courts, and on appeal.

Our proven ability to take high-stakes plaintiffs’ cases to trial—and to win at trial—presents our adversaries with a threat they must consider from day one.  This ever-present threat often increases the settlement value of our plaintiffs’-side cases.  We recently secured a 9-figure settlement for a pharmaceutical company in several contract disputes arising out of drug and device development collaboration and licensing agreements, without even having to file suit or request arbitration.

Law360 has repeatedly recognized Quinn Emanuel as one of the “Fearsome Foursome” of firms that in-house counsel least like to see on the other side.  The award is based on approximately 300 interviews with general counsels and other legal department heads.  We were the only firm in this foursome in any of those years that has a significant plaintiffs-side practice.  

Of course, we are not a typical “plaintiffs’ firm.”  Our lawyers routinely practice on both sides of the “v,” giving us deep insights into how to win cases against corporate defendants.  Our experience defending Fortune 100 companies allows us to see the big picture when representing plaintiffs—a significant edge over firms who only represent plaintiffs.  We also have the type of credibility with both defendants and defense counsel that comes uniquely from successfully practicing on the defense side.  And this credibility brings great benefits to our clients that are plaintiffs.   

We are far larger than any other firm that does a significant amount of plaintiffs’ work, a fact that makes us uniquely suited to go head-to-head against the biggest corporations in the world.  We have the resources and experience to prosecute any case, from complex technical patent cases to the world’s most sophisticated financial frauds or conspiracies that violate the antitrust laws.   In some cases, we have taken on a dozen of the largest Wall Street banks at once—and secured massive recoveries.  With 875 lawyers, we are never outgunned.  And with offices all over the world, we can go wherever necessary to vindicate our clients’ claims.

In addition to being trial lawyers, we also offer our clients one of the leading appellate practices in the nation.  Our trial and appellate lawyers collaborate to make sure we are ready to defend our victories and to overturn any adverse decisions.  And we also have a roster of bankruptcy litigators, who can pursue claims in bankruptcy or take necessary steps to collect on judgments won through litigation. 

A Proven Track Record of Success

The following cases are examples of recent successes:

We represented Samsung in a case involving its right to receive its full share of royalties for the use of its standard-essential High Efficiency Video Coding patents in a leading patent pool administered by MPEG LA. The dispute arose because MPEG LA had orchestrated an amendment that purported to cut Samsung’s royalties in half. We obtained summary judgment on Samsung’s contract claim against MPEG LA by proving that the purported amendment could not have been passed and was not passed.  

We were lead counsel in Health Republic Insurance Company v. United States, two parallel certified class action against the United States federal government for unpaid “risk corridor” amounts owed to Affordable Care Act insurers nationwide from 2014-2016.  As part of the ACA, Congress established a “risk corridors program” whereby the government incentivized insurers to enter the newly-created, but very risky, ACA exchanges by agreeing to backstop outsized losses in the first three years of the exchanges’ existence. When the government did not pay them, it caused widespread chaos in the markets.  Quinn Emanuel filed two first-of-their-kind class actions against the United States based on the government’s failure to pay health insurance companies pursuant to the ACA’s risk corridors and cost-sharing reduction programs.  Unlike a typical class action, only opt-in classes are permitted in the Court of Federal Claims.  Despite the efforts of other firms to steer health insurance companies away from the class action, hundreds opted-in, representing $2.2 billion, $1.75 billion, and $1.587 billion in claims, respectively. The firm achieved a major victory for the 2017-2018 cost-sharing reductions class when the Court of Federal Claims granted the class’ motion for summary judgment, finding the Government was required to pay cost-sharing reductions amounts that totaled more than $1.587 billion.  The firm also prevailed for the risk corridors classes when it defeated the Government’s motion to dismiss.  In subsequent appeals of parallel cases that utilized the case theories we pioneered, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of the plaintiffs, resulting in our clients receiving nearly $4 billion in final judgments.

We obtained for our clients Complete Genomics Institute (CGI) and Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) what is believed to be the largest verdict ever for a Chinese affiliated company, by securing a jury verdict of $333.8 million dollars for Illumina’s willful infringement of two CGI patents on an improved DNA sequencing method.  We also invalidated three sequencing patents Illumina asserted against BGI.  Illumina chose to satisfy the judgement rather than face the possibility of the damages being enhanced. 

In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation. In the largest mass tort multi-district litigation (MDL) ever brought in federal court, we serve on the Plaintiff Executive Committee that works for the common benefit of over 200,000 U.S. veterans injured as a result of using a defective earplug sold by 3M to the U.S. Military for over a decade.  Over the course of 2021 and 2022, we led and won three separate bellwether trials in the tort, including two “defense picks” (i.e., plaintiffs the defendants picked for trial, because they thought they were defense-friendly cases). We also assisted on every other major bellwether trial, which resulted in over $300 million of verdicts for 13 different military veterans. 

In In re Credit Default Swaps Antitrust Matter, we served as lead counsel for a class of investors and funds that alleged that twelve major Wall Street banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan, as well as Markit, a financial services firm, and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, secretly conspired to block competition and transparency in the CDS market.  We rapidly achieved an historic settlement of over $1.86 billion plus injunctive relief, one of the largest private antitrust settlements in history.  The settlement is particularly noteworthy because two separate governmental investigations—by the Department of Justice and the European Commission—failed to result in any penalties for any of the defendants.  At the final approval hearing, the district court explained the settlement “particularly its size, is attributable in no small measure to the skill of class counsel and the litigation strategy it employed.”  In his declaration supporting the terms of the settlement, the mediator, the Honorable Daniel Weinstein (Ret.), stated:

“I would go so far as to say that, in 30-plus years of mediating high-stakes disputes, this was one of the finest examples of efficient and effective lawyering by plaintiffs’ counsel that I have ever witnessed.  I have rarely, if ever, observed a Plaintiff in a case of this complexity and size, achieve a result of this magnitude with the speed that Plaintiffs achieved here.”

Stock Loan Antitrust. We are co-lead counsel for a proposed class of those who entered into stock loan transactions with six major banks that serve as prime brokers of stock loans.  Plaintiffs allege the defendants conspired to underpay stock lending institutions and to overcharge investors who borrow stock to execute short positions, by maintaining the power they hold as intermediaries in the over-the-counter, $1.7 trillion annual stock loan market and obstructing the development of electronic exchanges that would result in a more transparent and competitive market.  After defeating the defendants’ motions to dismiss in their entirety in 2018 and the completion of discovery in fall of 2020, we moved for class certification based on reports from three world-renowned experts and a fully developed evidentiary record.  Following extensive briefing and oral argument, we won another major victory on June 30, 2022, when Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave (SDNY) issued a report and recommendation advising that the class be certified.  The decision is currently pending review by District Judge Katherine Failla.  We have already recovered $81 on behalf of the class through a pre-certification settlement with one defendant, Credit Suisse.

Proofpoint, Inc. and Cloudmark LLC. We represented Proofpoint, Inc. and its subsidiary, Cloudmark LLC, in a case involving misappropriation of trade secrets and infringement of copyrights by Vade Secure and its CTO, Olivier Lemarie.  After a three-week jury trial, and one week of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict in Proofpoint’s favor, finding that Vade Secure had willfully misappropriated Proofpoint’s trade secrets, and infringed Proofpoint’s copyrights.  The jury awarded approximately $14M in compensatory damages.  A bench determination of punitive damages for Vade Secure’s willful misappropriation is forthcoming.  Earlier in the case, we defeated counterclaims raised by Vade Secure asserting antitrust, monopolization, and unfair competition claims against Proofpoint.  The Court granted our motion dismissing these counterclaims from the case, in response to which Vade Secure filed amended counterclaims.  After we filed a second motion to dismiss the amended counterclaims, Vade Secure dropped them from the case.

Songkick v. Ticketmaster. We represented Songkick, an artist presale ticketing service company, in an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation.  Before that lawsuit, no other plaintiff had ever proceeded past summary judgment against either company on antitrust claims.  Nevertheless, we not only defeated their summary judgment motion, but also proceeded to within two weeks of trial, at which time they paid $110 million and also acquired Songkick’s assets for a confidential amount.  The claims we brought threatened the core of Ticketmaster’s highly-lucrative business model and were the first—and, to our understanding, still the only—such claims to proceed so close to a jury.

Cassini SAS v Emerald Pasture DAC and ors. We represent lenders to a large events company, Comexposium, that was subject to a restructuring process in France. We obtained declarations in the English High Court, and successfully defended that decision in the Court of Appeal, confirming that the Senior Facilities Agreement (SFA) remains valid and enforceable, that clauses relating to access to information for the Lenders remain valid, and that the Comexposium’s parent was in breach of those clauses for failing to provide information requested. It demonstrates another defeat to Comexposium’s attempt to disregard the clear terms of the SFA and the rights afforded to our clients.

Zdenek Bakala v. Pavol Krupa, Adam Swart, and Crowds on Demand, LLC.  We achieved a victory for client Zdenek Bakala, who was the victim of a coordinated harassment campaign consisting of extortion and defamation.  The Quinn Emanuel team led by Andrew Schapiro and Stephen Swedlow filed a complaint for civil RICO against the business and political rival perpetrating the harassment.  Despite the notorious difficulty of succeeding on these types of claims, Quinn Emanuel was able to secure a $32.4 million judgment for Mr. Bakala (including all of QE’s attorney fees) and, perhaps more importantly to our client, stop the harassment for good.

In TRC Operating Company, Inc. and TRC Cypress Group, LLC v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Quinn Emanuel represents TRC, which owns and operates an oil-producing property in California’s Midway-Sunset Oil Field.  TRC brought suit against Chevron U.S.A. Inc., which operates an adjoining oil-producing property, and Chevron later brought cross claims.  At issue in the lawsuit, among other things, is whether Chevron’s negligent oil-production operations on its property caused damage to TRC and its property as a result of surface and subsurface fluid trespass and movement between the parties’ properties.  Quinn Emanuel is lead counsel for TRC and has handled all aspects of the litigation, which involves substantial lost profits by TRC that resulted from Chevron’s misconduct.  At trial in 2021, a jury found for TRC on all of its claims and rejected all of Chevron’s cross-claims, resulting in a $120-million judgment against Chevron. 

In In re Commodity Exchange Inc., Gold Futures and Options Trading Litigation, Case No. 14-md-2548 (S.D.N.Y.), Quinn Emanuel was selected as co-lead class counsel by Judge Valerie E. Caproni of the S.D.N.Y. on behalf of investors harmed when a group of banks conspired to manipulate the market for gold and gold-related investments.  Defendants include the panel banks that make up the “London Gold Fixing,” a daily process that was supposed to involve a competitive auction among the panel members.  Instead, the complaint alleges the panel banks and their co-conspirators used a secretive, daily conference call as a platform for price-fixing, and asserts claims for violations of the Sherman and Commodity Exchange Acts on behalf of those who transacted in certain gold-related investments, including gold futures contracts traded on COMEX and other exchanges. Judge Caproni largely rejected Defendants’ motions to dismiss the complaint, which was primarily built upon an  extensive economic analysis of prices around the Fixing.  The decision is notable not only because of the Court’s determination that allegations based primarily on  economic analysis rendered the claims plausible, but also because the Court rejected the attempts by the banks to have the factual allegations about price movements discarded under a Daubert-like level of scrutiny, and to posit innocent counter-explanations for the anomalies. Fact discovery concluded in 2021, and proposed settlements totaling $152 million have now been reached with all defendants.

In a truly historic partnership between a regulator and a private firm, we represent the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as Conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in connection with its investigation and litigation of residential mortgage-backed securities.  We filed fourteen complaints, asserting billions in damages, against most major investment banks asserting federal and state “strict liability” statutory claims arising out of misrepresentations about the securities, and certain complaints assert common law fraud claims.  As widely reported, this is one of the most significant court actions taken by any federal regulator since the advent of the mortgage crisis, and the single largest set of actions ever filed by a governmental entity. 

• In 2012, the Honorable Denise L. Cote denied a motion to dismiss the claims in what was designated the “lead case” brought by FHFA, and in 2013 entered a series of rulings to streamline the cases for trial, including orders as to statistical sampling, loan file collection and reunderwriting, the scope of the so-called “actual knowledge” defense, the lack of any loss causation defense to FHFA’s Blue Sky claims, and other significant issues. 
• In 2013, we obtained a unanimous affirmance by the Second Circuit of Judge Cote's decision as to the timeliness of FHFA’s claims and its standing to sue, as well as a unanimous rejection of defendants’ joint mandamus petition seeking to overturn a number of Judge Cote’s key discovery rulings. 
• In 2015, after a four-week trial, we won an $806 million judgment against Nomura and RBS for these banks’ violations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Blue Sky laws of Virginia and the District of Columbia.  In a sweeping 361-page decision, Judge Cote held that the banks had issued securities to the GSEs based upon false and misleading representations in the offering documents and that “[t]he magnitude of falsity, conservatively measured, is enormous.” 
• Altogether, we settled settled actions against Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, UBS, HSBC, Citigroup, Barclays, and First Horizon, and recovered over $23 billion in settlements and trial judgments in these actions, including most recently in the RBS action, where we settled FHFA’s claims for $5.5 billion, one of the largest recoveries ever in a securities action. In these actions, Quinn Emanuel has faced some of New York’s most formidable defense firms including Sullivan & Cromwell (representing Nomura, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, First Horizon, and Barclays), Simpson Thacher (representing RBS and Deutsche Bank), Skadden Arps (representing UBS), Paul Weiss (representing Citigroup), and others.  We did not lose a single one of these cases.   

We represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (“LBHI”) as lead counsel litigating LBHI’s objections to claims by Citibank, N.A. and affiliates (“Citibank”) related to the close-out and valuation of tens of thousands of derivatives following Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008.  Under governing ISDA Master Agreements, Lehman’s trading counterparties were directed to determine the value of their derivatives trades following Lehman’s bankruptcy.  LBHI’s objections sought a significant reduction to the amounts claimed by Citibank, which totaled more than $2 billion, relating to approximately thirty thousand derivatives trades on a variety of grounds including that Citibank failed to act in a commercially reasonable manner when valuing the derivatives in question.  Quinn Emanuel engaged in almost five years of fact and expert discovery involving more than 1.4 million documents, thirty expert witnesses, and approximately 170 fact and expert depositions in addition to briefing summary judgment and pre-trial motions.  After 42 days of trial over the course of four months, at around the expected halfway point in trial, LBHI announced that it had reached a settlement with Citibank that will return $1.74 billion to Lehman’s creditors.  On October 13, 2017, the Bankruptcy Court approved the settlement.

We have represented one of the United States’ largest manufacturers in recovering almost $500 million to date on claims related to a worldwide bid-rigging and customer allocation conspiracy.  In achieving these results, we utilized attorneys in both the U.S. and abroad to ensure the most comprehensive recovery for our client.  We worked with experts to develop a compelling framework for resolving claims without litigations.  Attorneys in QE offices around the world operated seamlessly to maximize results in different venues.