First up are our runners-up. 

Steptoe & Johnson partner Michael Edney probably didn't have to look too far to find a victory cigar after scoring a big win for the premium cigar industry on August 19. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the District of Columbia issued an injunction barring the Food and Drug Administration from enforcing its premarket review requirement against "premium cigars" as that term is defined in the FDA's own August 2020 notice.  

A Sullivan & Cromwell team led by Robert Giuffra Jr., Suhana Han, and Matthew Schwartz won a key ruling for Volkswagen clarifying that the Department of Justice can settle civil securities claims on behalf of all U.S. government agencies. The August 20 decision from U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California found that VW's 2017 deal to settle claims stemming from the company's emissions scandal with the DOJ, including Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act claims for more than $5 billion in asset-backed securities, released claims that the SEC asserted over the same securities in the agency's March 2019 complaint.