- A Record of Success: Our team has guided clients through many historic litigation victories, including AT&T in the antitrust case that changed the telecommunications industry, Tellabs in one of the few securities class actions ever to be tried and General Electric in litigation related to asbestos cancer injury. In addition, Sidley has achieved victories in high-profile trials for industry leaders including Bayer, DIRECTV, Tyson Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Citigroup, Duke Energy and Asics among others.
- Trusted Advice and Client-Centric Approach: We understand that each of our clients will have a unique approach to the prospect of a trial involving their company. Our lawyers work closely with in-house legal counsel to develop an effective trial strategy for complex matters. We build long-standing relationships with our clients, allowing us to harness our knowledge of their business and legal needs into a comprehensive trial approach. Our deep experience also enables our teams to provide the judgment necessary to properly counsel clients, for a number of critical reasons, on when not to try a case, leading to the best possible outcomes short of a fully litigated result.
- Global Reach and Cross-Border Coverage: Our team has tried cases all over the world and in virtually every domestic jurisdiction. Our Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy and WTO Disputes lawyers handle cross-border and trade arbitrations for multinational corporations, trade associations and governments. In addition to our offices in key financial centers, Sidley has a network of local resources to help us quickly and efficiently establish a “home court” trial advantage wherever our clients are located.
- Broad Industry and Government Experience: Many of our victories have been on behalf of clients facing investigations and enforcement actions from major government agencies. Our lawyers have experience representing clients before the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, International Trade Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the European Commission, Financial Services Authority, International Chamber of Commerce and a variety of other international arbitral and judicial forums.
About Our Team
Strong leadership both in and out of the courtroom has earned our team recognition in many industry publications, including Chambers, Benchmark Litigation, Global Arbitration Review, The American Lawyer and LMG Life Sciences. We are proud of the depth of talented women trial lawyers on our team, several of whom were honored for their achievements and career accomplishments in the 2022 edition of Benchmark Litigation’s “Top 250 Women in Litigation.”
Representative Recent Trial Wins
Selected examples of our most recent trial and arbitration successes include representing:
- Asics in a third-party investor lawsuit relating to alleged misrepresentations over a retail operation agreement. A complete defense verdict was obtained after a two-week jury trial.
- One of the world’s largest energy companies in successfully obtaining and securing payment of a €625 million award in an ICC arbitration related to the cancellation of a nuclear power plant project. For this victory, Sidley received the 2017 American Lawyer Global Award for “Global Dispute of the Year: Commercial Arbitration (Europe).”
- Bayer HealthCare LLC in obtaining an award of more than US$155 million in damages, ranking among the 10 largest patent verdicts in the federal court in Delaware in the past decade and constituting the largest biotech patent verdict in that court.
- Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. (now known as J.P. Morgan Securities LLC) and affiliates in an adversary proceeding over a US$200 million-plus claim brought by the Chapter 7 Trustee of failed mortgage lender HomeBanc Corp.
- beIN Corporation, a global sports and entertainment broadcaster, in an investment arbitration claiming more than US$1 billion against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for unlawfully forcing the Qatar-headquartered broadcaster out of the local market and supporting a notorious broadcast pirate known as beoutQ, including the coordination of a multifaceted international strategy involving legal proceedings in numerous fora and government advocacy in the U.S. and EU.
- DIRECTV in a total trial victory against the FTC. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed with prejudice the FTC’s US$4 billion false advertising case against DIRECTV, ending years-long litigation.
- Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in a class action by term life insurance policyholders who alleged that MassMutual breached its contracts with them by not paying them dividends. Following a two-week jury trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, we obtained a complete defense verdict in favor of MassMutual.
- Microsoft Corp. in a patent trial in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall District in which we successfully defended the company, achieving a dual ruling of invalidity and non-infringement against video conferencing company, Biscotti Inc., that claimed Microsoft’s Xbox violated their intellectual property rights. This was the first jury win for Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas.
- Mount Olympus Mortgage Company (MOMCo) in a data theft and fraud case. Sidley obtained a US$25 million verdict on behalf of MOMCo, including punitive damages, and prevailed on every cause of action.
- Solargenix Energy, LLC in a trial victory in Illinois court, obtaining an award of US$134,500,801 in damages. The five-week bench trial concluded over six-and-a-half years of litigation. The lawsuit was against Acciona S.A. and Acciona Energia, S.A., and two of their U.S. subsidiaries, and concerned the joint company that Solargenix and Acciona had formed to develop solar power plants around the world. The court concluded that Acciona breached the parties’ joint venture agreement “at every turn,” breached its fiduciary duties to Solargenix, and tortiously interfered with the parties’ joint venture agreement by secretly negotiating a partnership with another company, all of which collectively caused the value of the joint company to wither away.
- South African runner and two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya in appellate proceedings before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court against the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s award upholding controversial IAAF regulations requiring certain female athletes to undergo compulsory hormonal drug interventions.
- A supplement company in several lawsuits seeking certification of nationwide classes of consumers who purchased probiotic supplements. Plaintiffs asserted that the statements in the labeling and advertising (relating to benefits to the digestive and immune systems) are not substantiated and, therefore, false and misleading. We won a bench trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey where the court rejected claims by the FTC that the company lacked substantiation for its claims and denied the government’s attempt to hold the company in contempt of court and to fine our client hundreds of millions of dollars. We also won summary judgment in class actions in New Jersey and California, and plaintiffs’ appeals were dismissed.
- Major pharmaceutical and medical device clients in numerous product liability trials, including in HRT and other bone drug litigation, mask and respirator litigation, drug infusion litigation, asbestos litigation and gadolinium-based MRI contrast agent litigation, among others. We regularly serve as trial counsel in the often high-stakes first trial involving a particular product.
- A leading financial institution in achieving a defense verdict after a lengthy jury trial where plaintiff alleged wrongful termination, whistleblowing, race and age discrimination and retaliation.
