It's Litigator of the Week time once again, and we have some really strong runners-up to shout out this week.

First up, big kudos go out to a team from Steptoe & Johnson led by Brian Heberlig and Reid Weingarten who scored a dramatic turnaround for Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad. The American-educated entrepreneur born in Iran had been found guilty in March by a federal jury in Manhattan of violating the U.S. sanctions regime against the country of his birth. Yesterday in this space, we highlighted the dogged work the Steptoe lawyers did to uncover potential exculpatory evidence withheld by prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan's decision Friday to toss the charges against Sadr and review the government's conduct. Incredible result.

Latham & Watkins continued its streak of kicking butt for the U.S. Soccer Federation, this time in litigation brought by Relevent Sports, which was seeking to stage games between foreign clubs in the U.S. Partners Lawrence Buterman and Christopher Yates, and associates Aaron Chiu and Elizabeth Yandell won a motion to compel arbitration and dismissal of Relevent's antitrust claims on July 20.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison appellate star Kannon Shanmugam helped secure a trial court win for client Johnson & Johnson in an Anti-Terrorism Act case against many of the world's leading pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies. Plaintiffs were attempting to hold the companies liable for harm to American service members at the hands of terrorists in Iraq between 2005 and 2011 by claiming that the companies knew that funds from their sales to Iraqi health authorities were being funneled to terror groups. Shanmugam handled the substantive arguments on the motion to dismiss for all defendants, and Paul Mishkin of Davis Polk & Wardwell representing AstraZeneca, arguing on behalf of foreign defendants that the court lacked personal jurisdiction. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in a July 17 opinion found that the ATA did not provide the relief that plaintiffs sought.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partners Ethan Glass, Mike Bonanno and William Burck beat back a bid for an injunction against the National Association of Realtors and its codefendants, the California Association of Realtors and the San Francisco Association of Realtors. The Quinn lawyers convinced U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria to deny a motion for preliminary injunction from Top Agent Network, a San Francisco-based platform for real estate agents which challenged NAR's rule banning members from marketing homes privately, or "off market." 

A Palo Alto-based team Simpson Thacher & Bartlett including partners James Kreissman and Stephen Blake, and associate Breanna Philips won a ruling from U.S. District Judge Jill Otake of the District of Hawaii granting client Cyanotech Corporation's bid to dismiss a shareholder derivative suit. Otake found that the plaintiff's earlier demand in a prior suit filed in Nevada federal court against Cyanotech precluded the latest attempt to plead demand futility.

A team at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom including Scott Musoff, Rob Fumerton and Michael Griffin in New York; and Brad Klein, Mike McIntosh and Sylvia Tsakos in Washington, D.C, beat back securities class action claims brought against Chinese app developer Cheetah Mobile Inc. and current and former company officers. Plaintiffs claimed that the company and officials made misleading statements about allegations that certain Cheetah apps used software that allowed the company to collect fees for bogus app installations. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman on July 16 dismissed the case finding that the challenged statements were neither false nor misleading, and that the plaintiff failed to plead scienter.

Just days ahead of what was scheduled to be the first trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery to determine if the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a material adverse event in a proposed deal, Forescout and Advent International reached an amended merger agreement. The roughly $1.43 billion deal, reached July 15, came after a Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati litigation team led by Delaware partner Lori Will, and Ignacio Salceda, Steve Guggenheim, and William Chandler upped the pressure on Advent by filing an early temporary restraining order and motion to expedite the case on Forescout's behalf.