Our first runner-up this week is a team at Debevoise & Plimpton led by the firm's international dispute resolution group co-chair Mark Friedman and partner Ina Popova. Last week they secured a $412 million recovery for oil and gas company Perenco Ecuador in its long-running dispute with the Republic of Ecuador. An ICSID tribunal on Friday finalized its holding that Ecuador violated its bilateral treaty with France after passing a controversial 2006 law allowing it to seize virtually all of the revenues of foreign oil companies, including two oil fields that Perenco purchased under long-term contracts with the state. Friedman and Popova have led the oral advocacy at the eight hearings on the matter for Parenco over the last decade. Debevoise associates Laura Sinisterra and Sarah Lee, who have both worked on the case since their first days at the firm, had stand-up roles at the most recent hearing. The team was supported by associates Moeun Cha and Janine Godbehere.

Also landing runners-up honors this week is Theane Evangelis of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who won a Ninth Circuit ruling reversing a record-setting $102 million class action and private attorneys' general act verdict against Wal-Mart. Walmart's victory resulted in the reversal of the largest-ever statutory penalties awarded under California Labor Code section 226 and largest court-awarded PAGA penalty—$48 million and $53 million—respectively. The ruling also set important precedent for defendants in PAGA actions by finding that a named plaintiff must suffer from a particular alleged Labor Code violation to have standing to bring claims in federal court. Gibson partners Julian Poon and Brad Hamburger joined Evangelis on the briefs for Wal-Mart.

Todd Anten, Robert Raskopf, and Jessica Rose of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan also get a runners-up nod for getting a big summary judgment win on behalf of Vimeo in a long-running suit where music labels were trying to hold the online video-sharing platform liable when users post videos containing copyrighted music. At this point in the case, the labels were pursuing claims related to videos that Vimeo employees had liked or posted comments on, arguing that "totality of circumstances" raised questions about whether Vimeo had "red flag" knowledge of infringement in those videos. But U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan last week found that though the plaintiffs' evidence "may well demonstrate that a Vimeo employee was aware of the content of a Video-in-Suit and that it was objectively obvious that such a video contained copyrighted music," that wasn't sufficient to establish a claim since "these modes of interaction with infringing videos say nothing about the employee's knowledge as to whether the use of such music was authorized or fair."