Fraud, Fiduciary Breach and Similar Cases
Most of our cases involve allegations of commercial fraud and/or breach of fiduciary duty or the equivalent, often including claims for punitive damages or under RICO. We have also handled many cases involving allegations of securities fraud. Some notable examples of our experience in these areas include:
- Our principals have successfully tried to verdict (in several different jurisdictions across the country) cases alleging securities and ERISA fraud. We won three landmark appeals on securities fraud (one in the U.S. Supreme Court) and one on ERISA. We acted as lead counsel to settle large securities law class actions against HMO America (a NYSE company), Safety-Kleen (a Fortune 500 company), and TSC (a NASDAQ company). We have represented Commonwealth Edison in a variety of securities class actions, winning a major victory in one (and establishing favorable new federal securities law in the Seventh Circuit) and settling others. For Inland Steel, we won a derivative suit and made new law in the Illinois Appellate court.
- Grippo & Elden recently obtained a verdict of $36 million against the plaintiffs' class action firm Ness, Motley, Loadholt, Richardson & Poole. Our client, Interclaim Holdings, alleged that Ness Motley breached its fiduciary duties in connection with the settlement of a class action lawsuit, which provided for millions in fees to Ness Motley but little relief for the class members and nothing to Interclaim. The jury found in favor of Interclaim on breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty counts and awarded $8.3 million in compensation damages and $27.7 million in punitive damages.
- We handled for American Express Financial Advisors, IDS Life, Goldman Sachs, and others enforcement efforts in court and NASD arbitration of post-employment covenants not to solicit customers or misuse confidential information.
- We defended IBM in a multi-million dollar breach of contract and fraud case relating to IBM's design and development of FTD.com's web site. The case recently settled on favorable terms while IBM's motion to dismiss the case was pending.
- We are currently representing a large privately-held corporation in a complex commercial fraud case involving a $1,000,000,000 supply and service agreement.
- Representing our client (a bankruptcy trustee and class of note holders) on the offensive, we persuaded a jury to award the largest verdict (to that point) in the history of the Western District of Arkansas. We recovered all our clients' losses, with interest, plus paying all our own legal fees and expenses, from a group of banks, accountants, lawyers, and directors. Ultimately, we argued separate appeals to the United States Supreme Court, winning the now famous case of Reves v. Ernst & Young, 110 S. Ct. 945 (1990) (defining when instruments resembling demand notes can be securities; the basis of many subsequent government S&L suits).
- We obtained summary judgments for the founders of a high-tech company accused of fraud and breach of fiduciary duties by alleged minority shareholders in a former enterprise.
- We defended CNA in a series of cases tried to three different Arkansas juries. The cases, all brought by local Arkansas plaintiffs, involved a former CNA agent who pleaded guilty to embezzling pension funds, served years in jail, and then testified against CNA. About two dozen pension funds sued in their hometowns alleging common-law fraud, ERISA, securities law, and RICO violations. We won complete jury verdicts on all counts as to all plaintiffs in two trials. In a third, we obtained trial verdicts in CNA's favor as to 7 of 12 plaintiffs and prevailed as to the remaining issues on appeal.