Litigation

Dorf Nelson & Zauderer’s commercial litigation team has decades of experience litigating complex commercial disputes in New York state courts, including the Commercial Division, as well as in federal district courts, circuit courts, and courts throughout the country. We have served as lead trial counsel, co-counsel, and additional trial counsel in high-stakes business cases involving contract disputes, business breakups, fraud, business torts, partnership and shareholder disputes, fiduciary-duty claims, securities and financial products, professional liability, real estate, insurance coverage, and other commercial matters.

Our attorneys handle matters from inception through trial and appeal, including developing effective litigation strategies, conducting discovery, arguing dispositive motions, trying cases, obtaining, defending, and enforcing major judgments, negotiating significant settlements, and handling scores of appeals. Because of our experience and expertise in the New York court system and local federal courts, leading national and international law firms also regularly ask us to advise and assist at trial and on appeal in some of the country’s most significant and high-value cases. The matters listed below are only a small sampling of our work, but they are representative of the high-value cases, complex legal issues, sophisticated clients, and trial-focused engagements for which we are regularly retained.

• On behalf of the developer of a multibillion-dollar luxury resort in the Bahamas, we were retained as co-counsel and additional trial counsel in a New York Supreme Court action alleging fraud by a group of affiliated construction and investment entities that had thousands of workers building the resort. After an eleven-day trial, the Court found the defendants liable for both breach of contract and fraud, pierced the corporate veil to hold related companies liable, rejected the defendants’ counterclaims, and entered judgment in favor of our client for more than $1.6 billion. The judgment was unanimously affirmed on appeal.
• We represented a major financial guaranty insurer of the Countrywide mortgages that played a major role in the 2008 financial crisis. Because of our trial expertise, including experience with New York’s unique method of jury selection, we were retained as additional trial counsel after a decade of pretrial litigation against Countrywide and its successor, a major international bank. The action was tried in the Commercial Division of New York County Supreme Court, where, in the middle trial, our client obtained a $1.84 billion settlement with Countrywide’s successor.
• At the request of a major national law firm, we were brought in as additional trial counsel for the defense in a high-profile New York County Commercial Division action brought by founders and senior executives of a leading international consumer-technology company against its parent companies. The plaintiffs alleged that the parent companies had deprived them of billions of dollars in value related to stock-option and valuation rights. Drawing on our experience trying complex business disputes and our expertise in the unique aspects of jury selection and trial practice in the Commercial Division, we assisted with trial strategy and preparation and participated in the trial, including at jury selection, a unique process in New York State courts.
• In a New York Supreme Court action arising from a series of multibillion-dollar transactions involving the sale of a major Russian oil joint venture, we defended one of the two co-venturing investor defendants in the trial court and on appeal as co-counsel. The plaintiff sought approximately $2 billion based on alleged retained equity rights in the venture. The Court granted our motion for summary judgment, dismissing the plaintiff’s claims, and the Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously affirmed.
• At the request of a major national law firm, we were retained midstream to assist in the prosecution of an ongoing but stalled New York False Claims Act qui tam action on behalf of the State of New York against many of the nation’s largest life insurance companies. The complaint alleges that the insurance companies failed to report and escheat more than $1.0 billion in abandoned life-insurance policy proceeds to the New York State Comptroller and submitted false annual holder reports to conceal or avoid those obligations.
• In a $400 million litigation in the Supreme Court, New York County, brought on behalf of certain holders of trust preferred securities issued by several insurance companies, we currently represent several defendant corporations and individuals who have retained us as trial and appellate counsel.
• On behalf of a dozen holders of publicly traded stock warrants, we were retained as additional litigation, trial, and appellate counsel in a New York Supreme Court action against a public media and visual-content company. Our lawsuits arise from the company’s refusal to permit the plaintiffs to exercise warrants issued in connection with a de-SPAC transaction. We are seeking more than $67 million in damages for breach of the governing warrant agreement. The Court granted our motion for summary judgment in full.
• As the case was approaching trial, a major Texas law firm brought us in for trial because of our New York litigation experience, to represent a venture-backed financial-technology and credit-data company. The New York County Supreme Court action involved breach-of-contract and wrongful-termination claims by a former senior executive, who alleged an equity-compensation agreement valued at approximately $70 million. After trial, the court dismissed the executive’s claim in its entirety and entered judgment for our client.
• As counsel for a real estate lender, we commenced, prosecuted, and tried a breach-of-contract action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to recover the stolen proceeds of a multimillion-dollar loan. The action was brought against the City of Hamilton, Bermuda, its capital. After a full trial, the Court rejected Hamilton’s defenses under both New York and Bermuda law and awarded our client judgment for the full amount we sought, exceeding $20 million.
• We were retained as additional trial counsel to assist a major international law firm on behalf of a multinational telecommunications company in a dispute with a Mexican telecommunications conglomerate over tax indemnification following a corporate acquisition. After a ten-day trial in the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court, a verdict was rendered in our client’s favor, resulting in a $20 million judgment. It was unanimously affirmed on appeal.
• We represented the plaintiff in a copyright and unfair-competition action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, arising from a competitor’s copying of the client’s proprietary e-commerce website. Following a jury trial, we obtained a unanimous verdict for copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, unfair competition and, notably, secured a finding of personal liability against its individual principal. The jury awarded both compensatory and punitive damages, resulting in a judgment exceeding $6.2 million.
• On behalf of a group of public-charter air carriers, we secured a reversal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, persuading the court that a county airport-access restriction was preempted by the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act. The restriction sought to force the carriers out of the airport’s private hangar area and into the main commercial terminal, effectively shutting down their operations at the airport. Holding the restriction preempted, the court invalidated it, allowing the carriers to continue serving their passengers from the airport’s private hangar area.
• We won dismissal of multimillion-dollar claims brought by two plaintiffs against our client, one of the country’s foremost class-action law firms, in an action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case involved events in both the United States and France. We successfully persuaded both the U.S. court and courts in France to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims and to award substantial monetary sanctions against both plaintiffs.
• We won dismissal of a New York Supreme Court legal malpractice action brought against an Am Law 100 international law firm, one of the country’s largest firms. The case arose from the firm’s representation of a former public-company CEO in a federal white-collar criminal prosecution.