First up this week are Kathryn "Lee" Boyd of Hecht Partners and Michael Hausfeld of Hausfeld who lead a team representing Sudanese refugees in the U.S. who claim French bank BNP Paribus aided and abetted the government of Sudan in committing acts of genocide between 1997 and 2011. Senior U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan last week largely denied the bank's motion for summary judgment. In particular, on causation, the judge found "too many facts showing a relationship between the dollar financing provided by BNPP, and the atrocities perpetrated" by the government to grant summary judgment to the bank. The team at Hecht Partners also includes Kristen Nelson, Mike Eggenberger, Theo Bruening and paralegal Nathan Hakimpour. The Hausfeld team includes Scott Gilmore, Amanda Lee-DasGupta, Claire Rosset, Mary Sameera Van Houten Harper and senior paralegal Jim Mitchell.

Michael Carlinsky, Jennifer Barrett, Michael Barlow and their team at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan got a win at the Delaware Chancery Court for Centerview Partners in a case that captured the attention of the banking world. Former Centerview partner David Handler claimed he struck an oral agreement during a November 2012 meeting at the University Club with the merger advisory boutique's founders giving him an equity stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III found this week that Handler failed to meet his burden to show that any such agreement existed and that at Centerview "partners were no more equity holders than Colonel Harlan Sanders was a field officer." The Quinn Emanuel team also includes Hope Skibitsky and Charles Sangree.