This week there was a bevy of big litigation wins worthy of shout outs as runners-up. Let's get straight to it. 

 A team from Covington & Burling led by partners Craig Pollack and Greg Lascelles, and including London-based lawyers Eddy Eccles, Jonathan Heath and Charlotte Raynor, and Alex Gudko helped win a multi-billion dollar dispute for Ukrainian businessman Oleg Mkrtchan and related corporate entities in the English Commercial Court. The proceedings, pinned at $2 billion in value, involved accusations of wide-ranging fraud against Mkrtchan. After an eight-week trial, the judge dismissed all but a single claim to transfer shares, which the judgment itself noted was likely worthless. Mkrtchan also had representation from David Wolfson QC, Sebastian Isaac and Henry Hoskins, all of One Essex Court, plus Harris Bor of Twenty Essex.

An all-woman team from the international dispute resolution group of Debevoise & Plimpton led by Catherine Amirfar won a ruling in favor of Qatar from the International Court of Justice, the United Nations judicial body perhaps better known as the World Court. The court unanimously rejected appeals filed by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt in a dispute over decisions to bar Qatar-registered aircraft, and, by a vote of 15 to 1, held that the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization has jurisdiction over the dispute.

For the second week in a row, Jenner & Block appellate and Supreme Court practice chair Ian Heath Gershengorn gets a shout out. Last week it was for convincing the Fourth Circuit to revive a copyright infringement suit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America and member recording companies. This week it's for the 5-4 win he scored for client Jimcy McGirt at the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling which found that Oklahoma land reserved for the Creek Nation since the 1800s remains an Indian reservation, meaning the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute his client.

Quinn Emanuel partner Kevin Johnson extended his winning streak for client Fitbit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to four straight appeals. In prior trips to the Federal Circuit, he won the affirmation of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions invalidating three patents from biometric technology company Valencell. In a July 8 decision, the court vacated and remanded a decision finding three claims of Valencell's fourth patent valid.

As we highlighted in this space earlier this week, New York heavyweights Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison got a massive win for three hedge funds at the Kentucky Supreme Court last week. The Bluegrass state's high court issued a long-awaited decision on July 9 shutting down a derivative suit filed on behalf of a group of state pension holders accusing the funds of funneling state retirement system funds into overly risky investments and charging unnecessary fees. The court found the plaintiffs, state employees with defined-benefit retirement plans, didn't have standing to sue since they hadn't experienced any disruption in their benefits and the state is on the hook should the retirement system face a shortfall in the future.

Mega-kudos also go to Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. A team headed up by partners Felicia Ellsworth and Bill Lee was set to argue for clients Harvard University and MIT in a challenge to the Trump Administration plan to prevent international students whose classes have all been forced online by the pandemic from entering or remaining in the country. At a hearing in Boston Tuesday, lawyers for the government announced that the policy was being rescinded.

The Wilmer lawyers were far from the only litigators getting in on the action challenging the policy. In similar challenges, a team from Quinn Emanuel led by Crystal Nix-Hines, Derek Shaffer and William Burck represented Johns Hopkins University, Crowell & Moring represented the University of California system and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher represented a coalition of 20 West Coast schools, including the University of Southern California, University of Oregon, and Stanford University.

Aaron Zeisler of Zeisler PLLC helped beat back trade secrets and breach of contract claims that the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates LP, brought against two former employees who left to form their own fund. Zeisler's July 1 win before a three-arbitrator panel, which found that Bridgewater "manufactured false evidence," became public in a petition filed in New York state court to enforce the arbitration outcome. Zeisler's clients are seeking nearly $2 million in attorneys' fees and costs from Bridgewater.