We had some strong LOTW candidates this week, including Gibson Dunn's Tom Dupree, who scored a significant win before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a case with big ramifications for angel investors. (See Jan. 4 Daily Dicta)

Another Gibson Dunn team—partners Thad Davis and Jim Zelenay—won dismissal of a whistleblower case for a troubled Southern California community medical center. A qui tam relator alleged that the Tri City Regional Medical Center improperly manipulated hospital admissions to maximize revenue.

And Schiff Hardin partner William Ziegelmueller won acquittal for Chicago businessman Brett Immel following a one-week jury trial in the Eastern District of Texas. Immel and a co-defendant were found not guilty of conspiring to commit bank fraud through a series of real estate transactions. “The verdict in Mr. Immel's favor vindicates our defense strategy, which was to emphasize that the government had no evidence of criminal intent,” Ziegelmueller said.

But ultimately, we were swayed by O'Melveny & Myers partner Abby Rudzin's win for a Chinese e-commerce company in a hot area of law: forum non conveniens.

Financial litigation reporter Colby Hamilton wrote this week's profile. Here's how it begins:

“America First” may be an oft-heard political slogan these days, but a significant ruling out of the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York shows it doesn't always apply to the federal court system.

Sometimes, the Cayman Islands is the right choice—just ask O'Melveny & Myers partner Abby Rudzin, our litigator of the week.

Rudzin prevailed on behalf of E-Commerce Dangdang Inc., a Beijing, China-based online retailer that competes with the likes of Alibaba and Amazon, in a putative class action by investors.

The investors—an American joined by two foreign funds—sued over a “going private” merger that they challenged on a number of grounds, including breach of fiduciary duties, violations of U.S. securities law and New York common law.

But U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla didn't focus on the merits of their claims. Instead, she considered whether U.S. federal court was the right place to make them at all.

Rudzin, a New York-based securities and antitrust litigation expert, argued that the answer was no. In a motion to dismiss filed on forum non conveniens grounds, she asserted that the Cayman Islands—where Dangdang is incorporated—is the proper place for litigation, not Manhattan federal court, even if the company was exclusively listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Late last week, Failla agreed.

“Though both the Cayman Islands and New York have a legitimate interest in adjudicating this dispute, the Cayman Islands has a closer nexus to the parties and events that are at the heart of this case,” she wrote on Dec. 29. “Simply put, the most critical parties are registered in, and the events giving rise to the suit took place in, the Cayman Islands, not the United States.”

Read the full story here, including Rudzin's thoughts on why we “shouldn't be such snobs” about the superiority of American judicial system.

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Simpson Thacher Client off the Hook in Lipitor Suit

Lipitor is the best-selling prescription drug in history, so no surprise that it's a litigation target.

But Simpson Thacher & Bartlett client Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. is now out of the crosshairs.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that it lacked personal jurisdiction over Daiichi Sankyo in multidistrict “pay-for-delay” antitrust litigation involving Lipitor.

It's one of those cases featuring a who's-who of lawyers: Jay Lefkowitz, Jonathan Janow and John O'Quinn of Kirkland & Ellis plus Joseph Serino Jr. of Latham & Watkins for defendant Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc..

For co-defendant Pfizer Inc., lawyers include White & Case partners Robert Milne, Dimitrios Drivas, Raj Gandesha, Bryan Gant and Brendan Woodard.

Going to bat for Daiichi Sankyo: Simpson's Noah Leibowitz, Buzz Frahn, Kassie Helm and Francis Acott.

The Japan-based pharmaceutical company was only named in one offshoot of the Lipitor litigation, claims brought by a group of California pharmacists collectively referred to as RP Healthcare represented by Joseph Alioto of the Alioto Law Firm.

A unanimous Third Circuit panel upheld the district court's decision to dismiss the RP case, albeit for different reasons. (It's one of those holdings that only an antitrust lawyer could love: RP alleged a per se violation under the California's antitrust statute, the Cartwright Act—but reverse settlements “must instead be scrutinized under a structured rule of reason analysis.” If that sentence interests you, here's the full decision.)

The panel also upheld the lower court's ruling that “RP Healthcare has failed to allege, let alone prove, any facts that would support a California court's exercise of personal jurisdiction” over Daiichi Sankyo.

Because Daiichi Sankyo is not named in any other Lipitor suits, that means it's now off the hook entirely.

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Kirkland Deploys a Win for GM

A team from Kirkland & Ellis scuttled more than 200 claims against General Motors by plaintiffs blaming defective ignition switches for their accidents.

The company has already paid out more than $2.5 billion in settlements and penalties in cases where faulty ignition switch allegedly caused car engines to stall and prevented the deployment of airbags.

But these 213 plaintiffs were trying out a more exotic theory. Their airbags did in fact deploy—which meant the ignition switch had to be in its proper “run” position at the time, they conceded.

But they argued that perhaps the ignition switch went from “run” to “off” or “accessory,” causing or contributing to their accidents, and then rotated back to “run” right before the airbag deployed.

Or not.

On Dec. 28, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York precluded the plaintiffs' expert testimony and granted GM judgment as a matter of law in a pair of bellwether cases.

“Significantly, neither Plaintiffs nor their experts cite any evidence suggesting that double ignition switch rotation has occurred in the real world,” Furman wrote. “Nor did (or could) they conduct any experiments that would tend to show that double switch rotation is anything more than a theoretical possibility.”

GM was represented by Kirkland & Ellis partners Renee Smith and Paul Collier; and Kyle Dreyer of the Hartline Firm.

The plaintiffs were represented by Robert Hilliard of Hilliard Martinez Gonzales in Houston.

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More Legal News

Judge Denies Fusion GPS Bid to Block House Subpoena for Bank Records

“This court will not—and indeed may not—engage in a line-by-line review of the committee's requests.”

At stake in the patent infringement and licensing dispute are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars and the fate of Ariosa's Harmony Prenatal Test.

If approved, the $2.95 billion payout will be the largest settlement of a class action U.S. securities fraud suit this decade and one of the top 10 in history.

In three paragraphs and a footnote, Sessions axed five DOJ guidance documents on marijuana and simply urged prosecutors to “follow the well-established principles that govern all federal prosecutions.” Whatever that means.

“To call it an empty threat is a significant understatement,” said Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Theodore Boutrous.

The team reads like a “Who's Who” in mass torts and includes many of the same lawyers who obtained the $246 billion settlement with Big Tobacco.

Sanford “Sandy” Saunders Jr., a former co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig's D.C. office, died unexpectedly in his sleep while visiting family in Florida.

Four partners join local litigation shop Todd & Weld.

“I fully expect there to be additional filings and that this will go the usual route of multidistrict litigation,” Chris Cantrell of Doyle APC said. “Just the sheer number of devices that we're talking about … Most of the desktop and laptop computers in use today.”

The family of a high school senior who committed suicide after years of alleged taunting and abuse from fellow students has sued the school for at least $1 million.