First up, alphabetically, an Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer trial team led by Evan Rothstein and Patrick Hall secured a $33.45 million verdict late last month for chocolate makers Lindt & Sprungli, Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, and Russell Stover in a dispute with logistics company GXO/XPO over the installation of warehouse management software system in the chocolate companies' primary West Coast packaging and distribution center in Tracy, California. After a two-week trial in Kansas City, Missouri, jurors also sided with the chocolate companies on both six of their claims, and three GXO/XPO counterclaims. The Arnold & Porter team also included Kurt Riester, Peter Vogel, Nate King, Dan Shimell, Marc Cohn, Suneeta Hazra, Stanton Jones, Elisabeth Theodore, Daniel Yablon, Natalie Steiert, Nina Tauscher, Tanya Huffaker, Massiel Rivera and Dawna Peich.

A Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher team led by Kristin Linsley got a significant ruling knocking out claims, which sought to hold Salesforce Inc. liable under the federal civil sex-trafficking statute. Plaintiffs claimed Salesforce should have known backpage.com site was being used by sex traffickers when it provided software to a Bakpage affiliate. But  U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle in Dallas late last month found that "nothing in the pleadings which would demonstrate that Salesforce should have known these advertisements violated sex trafficking laws." The judge adopted Salesforce's position that the relevant law "requires constructive knowledge of the specific violation"—a ruling running counter to an earlier Seventh Circuit decision allowing similar claims to move forward against Salesforce. The Gibson Dunn team includes partners Brad Hamburger and Brad Hubbard, associates Chris Jones, Matt Capoccia, Stephen Hammer and Summer Wall.