Steve Strauss of Cooley got a team from Latham & Watkins booted from a suit arising from the largest Ponzi scheme in San Diego history—a $400 million fraud where investors loaned money escrowed at Chicago Title to provide bridge loans to liquor licenses purchasers in California. (This being a Ponzi, no licenses were actually purchased.) Representing the title company, Strauss convinced San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn to grant a motion to disqualify on August 31 based on a finding that Latham had represented Chicago Title in another case that had a "substantial relationship" to the matter at hand.

IP litigator Stuart Dunwoody of Davis Wright Tremaine tasted victory at the Federal Circuit for Washington State University. The appellate court unsealed a decision last week in a big showdown over the rights to cultivate and sell the patented Cosmic Crisp apple, labelled by the New York Times as "the most promising and important apple of the future." The court agreed with Dunwoody's argument that the option ag-tech company Phytelligence had to license the fruit via a draft propagation agreement from 2012 was an unenforceable "agreement to agree" and not "an agreement with open terms." 

Representing Restoration Robotics, Inc., Latham & Watkins partners Matt Rawlinson, Gavin Masuda, Hilary Mattis, and associate Daniel Gherardi got the first California trial court decision following March's Delaware Supreme Court's ruling in Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi, which held that federal forum provisions are valid under Delaware law, but left the question open under other states' laws. San Mateo Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner found on September 1 that both California and federal law permit federal forum provisions. The judge also held that Restoration Robotics' provision was enforceable under California law because requiring a shareholder to assert federal claims in federal court isn't unfair or unreasonable.