Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Paul Brinkman and Joe Loy of Kirkland & Ellis, who deserve a toast for their win on behalf of Heineken in a patent fight with Anheuser-Busch InBev. On the eve of trial at the International Trade Commission, AB InBev abruptly dismissed its entire case accusing Heineken of infringing its patents for technology related to “bag-in containers”—where beer is stored inside a bag that's inside a bottle. (Apparently it keeps the beer fresher.)

The dismissal followed a Markman order and rulings on numerous motions and objections that largely favored Heineken. Meanwhile, a decision in Heineken's ITC case against AB InBev for infringing its patent related to a drink dispenser for carbonated beverages is pending.

McDermott Will & Emery's Margaret “Peg” Warner prevailed in the D.C. Circuit on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors against retirement services giant Great-West Financial, which was represented on appeal by Sidley Austin's Carter Phillips.

In 2018, Warner convinced a federal jury to award her client $8 million for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing stemming from retirement plans sold to city employees. In a per curiam judgment, the court upheld the lower court win, rejecting Great-West's argument that the parties' agreements precluded recovery of the lost profits damages, and that there was insufficient evidence for the award.

A pro bono appellate team from Hogan Lovells led by Cate Stetson also scored a major win before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appeals court affirmed a lower court decision that conditions of confinement on Virginia's death row violated the Eighth Amendment. The divided panel held that keeping prisoners locked in a cell half the size of a parking space for 23 to 24 hours a day poses a substantial risk of serious psychological and emotional harm.

Jim Dabney led a team from Hughes Hubbard & Reed for drugmaker Cipla in a patent fight with Amgen over sales of a generic version of calcium-control drug Sensipar, which produced $1.4 billion in U.S. sales for Amgen last year. In an opinion unsealed on May 3, a federal judge in Delaware rejected Amgen's request to halt sales of Cipla's generic version of Sensipar, pointing to a single sentence in a prior agreement between the companies.