Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division: Second Judicial Department STEVEN W. FISHER, J.P. ANITA R. FLORIO RANDALL T. ENG SHERI S. ROMA

On Tuesday the Second Circuit ruled that the pharmaceutical company is on the hook for overtime for 2,700 sales reps in three wage-and-hour class actions. For Novartis, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs are all too familiar.

If the Supreme Court rules later this year that pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt from overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the high court could knock out class action wage-and-hour claims pending against a half-dozen major drug companies. But Novartis and its lawyers at Cravath apparently weren't willing to gamble that the Justices would see things the drug companies' way.