Our first runners-up this week are David Pinsky, Marney Cheek and Jeremy Wilson of Covington & Burling. They led a team representing Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state-owned oil and gas company, in securing a $5 billion award from Russia stemming from assets seized in the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The Covington team previously represented Naftogaz in securing wins in the jurisdictional and merits phases of the multiyear proceeding. The damages phase, conducted before a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, coincided with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.  

Runners-up honors also go to a separate Covington team led by Emily Ullman. California's First District Court of Appeal this week upheld the firm's trial court win for AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and McKesson knocking out cases consolidated in California state court alleging that diabetes medications Onglyza and Kombiglyze XR can lead to heart failure and other cardiovascular problems. The appellate court upheld rulings excluding the plaintiffs' causation experts and granting the defendants summary judgment due to a lack of viable testimony on general causation. The Covington team on the appeal included Jeffrey Davidson, Paul Schmidt and Phyllis Jones.

Morty Dubin, Julia Romano and their team at King & Spalding get a runner-up spot for getting a defense verdict for Union Carbide Corp. in an asbestos case where the plaintiffs, the family of a Western Missouri man who died from mesothelioma, were seeking more than $40 million in compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages. The defense team argued that the type of Union Carbide asbestos used at the facility where the man worked was mineralogically unique and didn't play a role in causing his disease. After two weeks of trial and a half-day of deliberations, Clay County Circuit Court jurors this week sided with Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. The King & Spalding team also included senior associate Michael Vives, counsel Matthew Ashby, associate Jake Keester and paralegal Luis Fermin with oversight from in-house litigation counsel LaRae' Neal at Dow.