Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partners Mike Lyle and Eric Lyttle. Their clients O'Brien's Response Management and National Response Corp. faced potential exposure of $500 million in a case stemming from the cleanup of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Lyle and Lyttle won a declaratory judgment in Louisiana federal court, which held that their clients—who cleaned up the spilled oil—did not have to cover or indemnify BP's losses from injury lawsuits filed years after the disaster.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Allyson Ho gave a winning argument in a Texas appellate court on behalf of defendant International Paper. She succeeded in getting more than $100 million cut from a jury verdict in a breach of fraud/contract case with Signature Industrial Services. 

The trial court verdict included the largest-ever award of damages for emotional distress—$63 million—to reach a Texas court of appeals. The Thirteenth District Court of Appeals axed the award and left intact a mere $14.8 million for breach of contract.

A team from Kirkland & Ellis led by corporate partners Sean Rodgers and Mike Shoaib and litigator Rob Ellis delivered a big win for Sycamore Partners, which was able to walk away unscathed from a $525 million deal to buy a majority stake in Victoria's Secret from L Brands. 

As I wrote earlier this week, the settlement included no breakup fee or other penalties for scuttling the high-profile deal—even though under the terms of the transaction agreement, L Brands was entitled to as much as $40 million in money damages if Sycamore terminated the deal.  

Hunton Andrews Kurth partners Alexandra Cunningham and Susan Wiltsie won dismissal of a suit against Smithfield Foods, which was sued over allegedly unsafe COVID-19 working conditions at its Milan, Missouri, plant. U.S. District Judge Greg Kays in the Western District of Missouri tossed the case, holding that "OSHA (in coordination with the USDA) … is better positioned" to make determinations regarding compliance with the applicable guidance, and allowing it to do so "will ensure uniform national enforcement." 

Sullivan & Cromwell's Bob Sacks and Bill Monahan won dismissal of a $5 billion putative securities class action against AT&T in New York state court. The suit, which stemmed from AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, alleged that Time Warner shareholders were misled about the condition of AT&T's DirecTV Now streaming service. In his ruling, Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court pointed out that the offering documents made no specific representation about DirecTV Now and that DirecTV Now was "not material to AT&T's business at the time."

Goodwin Procter litigator Brian Burgess led a team that included Chris Holding, Rob Carroll and Gerard Cedrone to victory in the Second Circuit for Teva Pharmaceuticals in an antitrust class action. Certain insurers challenged third party opt-out procedures adopted by the district court—a recurring issue in recent antitrust class action settlements involving the pharmaceutical industry. This is the first appellate decision to address the issue and could serve as a precedent for future litigation.  

Cravath, Swaine & Moore's Michael Paskin, Michael T. Reynolds and Lauren Moskowitz prevailed on behalf of Goldman Sachs, winning dismissal of a $230 million fraud and breach of contract suit in New York state court by former client United Natural Food Inc. At issue: Goldman's handling of the syndication of a term loan that UNFI used to finance its $3 billion acquisition of SuperValu Inc..

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison partners Andrew Ehrlich and Alexia Korberg and former litigation partner Jack Baughman notched a notable victory in Delaware for private equity client Oak Hill Capital Partners. The dispute stemmed from Oak Hill's investment in internet domain owner and operator Oversee.net. 

After a 10-day trial, Vice-Chancellor J. Travis Laster held under the "entire fairness" standard that Oak Hill's redemption of preferred stock (which left no value for common shareholders) was entirely fair and consistent with its fiduciary duties.