Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Sullivan & Cromwell's Sergio Galvis, Robert Giuffra Jr., Joseph Neuhaus and Thomas White, who scored an important win for The Republic of Argentina in a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by hedge fund Aurelius Capital. 

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York on Jan. 7 dismissed the complaint without prejudice, agreeing with the S&C team that Argentina did not owe Aurelius $61 million under securities that Argentina issued as part of a debt restructuring. The implications go beyond this case—Argentina faces five similar suits, with plaintiffs seeking hundreds of millions of dollars.

Uber counsel Karen Dunn, Stacey Grigsby, and Sam Kaplan of Boies Schiller Flexner plus Alex Drylewski of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for Lyft succeeded in getting a New York City rule regulating ridesharing companies struck down.

Justice Lyle Frank of the New York County Supreme Court on Dec. 23 nixed the so-called 'cruising cap," which limited how much time ridesharing platforms could spend without passengers in their cars in lower Manhattan. Frank found that the regulation was arbitrary and capricious, and violated administrative law principles.

That wasn't the only contender involving cars in New York City. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro drove home a win for actor Alec Baldwin in a lawsuit stemming from a now-infamous 2018 argument over a parking spot in Manhattan.

On Dec. 26, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge David Cohen ruled Baldwin did not slander Wojciech Cieszkowski by dishing about the fight on talk shows.

Also at Quinn Emanuel, Shon Morgan, John B. Quinn, Michael Williams, and Marina Lev closed a painful chapter for client USC when a federal judge approved a $215 million settlement of the class action arising from the USC sex-abuse scandal. 

Kudos to lead plaintiffs counsel Steve Berman at Hagens Berman; Annika Martin at Lieff Cabraser and  Daniel Girard and Elizabeth Kramer of Girard Sharp, who represented 18,000 women in the largest sex-abuse class action settlement in U.S. history.

Ballard Spahr's Stephen Kastenberg and David Axelrod won $80.6 million for Nasdaq in a breach of contract lawsuit involving its former business partner, ETF Managers Group. Nasdaq alleged that fund manager misappropriated millions of dollars in profits. ETFMG denied any wrongdoing and slapped Nasdaq with counterclaims.

After a 10-day bench trial in May, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan on Dec. 20 rejected all of ETFMG's claims and ordered it to compensate Nasdaq for retrospective and forward-looking damages.

Goodwin Procter partners Mark Abate and Calvin Wingfield led a team in persuading a jury in the Eastern District of New York to find for client Pass & Seymour Inc. in a patent fight with Leviton Manufacturing Co. 

At issue: Pass & Seymour's core technology–ground-fault circuit interrupters. In an uncommon move, the jury found that the asserted claims in the Leviton patent were invalid because they would have been obvious. 

Baker Botts partners Evan Young, Van Beckwith and Jonathan Patchen prevailed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc.  

The soda-maker was hit with a putative class claiming that the word "diet" in Diet Dr Pepper misled consumers into believing they could lose weight. On Dec. 30, the appeals court affirmed the lower court's dismissal of the case.