Described by CNBC as the “toughest lawyer on Wall Street” and by Bloomberg Financial News as an “uberlitigator,” Marc E. Kasowitz is widely regarded as one of the preeminent trial lawyers in the country.
Marc has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as one of the country’s top 100 trial lawyers and honored as a Litigation Trailblazer by National Law Journal. He is recognized as one of the nation’s top litigators by Chambers USA (clients praise him for having “a steel trap of a memory and a very convincing advocacy style – someone I would never want to be up against!" and his “tremendous trial experience”); Benchmark Litigation (“a unique, zealous, and exceptionally skilled advocate;” “his guidance is extremely reliable and he is very client-focused and big picture-oriented”); The Legal 500 (“excellent across the board” and “a superb lawyer”); The American Lawyer (a “powerhouse” and “the toughest of the tough guys”); The Globe and Mail (“one of the most prominent and feared litigators in the United States”); Lawdragon (“the cream of the crop”); and Law360 (Securities MVP; “one of the country’s most innovative managing partners”).
Marc regularly serves as national trial counsel in complex commercial litigation in the areas of antitrust, banking, securities, product liability, mass tort, corporate governance, fraudulent conveyance, RICO, environmental, breach of contract, and other cases. Marc also has an extensive and successful track record in dealing with investigations and lawsuits by state attorneys general, including path-breaking settlements of tobacco litigation. Marc has conducted numerous internal investigations on behalf of boards of directors, management and special committees regarding alleged corporate misfeasance, conflicts of interest, challenges to board authority, insider trading, accounting fraud, market timing, obstruction of justice and market manipulation.
Work Highlights
- MBIA in a decade-long put-back action against Credit Suisse in which MBIA sought to recover for breaches of representations and warranties related to RMBS insured by MBIA. After a two-week bench trial in New York State Supreme Court, the court found that MBIA had convincingly proved that Credit Suisse breached its representations and warranties, and that Credit Suisse was liable for over $600 million in damages.
- Alaskan Reefer Management and Kloosterboer International Forwarding, shippers of frozen fish from Alaska, in securing a pathbreaking preliminary injunction in the District of Alaska enjoining the U.S. government from assessing penalties for alleged Jones Act violations while the legality of already assessed penalties is adjudicated.
- ACA Financial Guaranty, a bond insurer, in its $120 million fraud suit against Goldman Sachs and hedge fund Paulson & Co. for fraudulently inducing ACA to issue a financial guaranty for Goldman’s ABACUS CDO by deceiving ACA about Paulson’s role and financial interest in the transaction. Marc successfully argued the case before the New York Court of Appeals, creating precedent on the standards for reliance in fraud actions under New York law.
- Pilgrim's Pride, one of the nation’s largest chicken producers, in resolving criminal claims relating to the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s high-profile investigation into alleged price fixing in the poultry industry.
- MLW Media in prosecuting antitrust claims against World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), alleging that WWE undermined competition and monopolized the market for the sale or licensing of media rights for professional wrestling programming in the United States. Kasowitz defeated WWE’s motion to dismiss.
- Yellow, one of the nation’s largest transportation and logistics companies, in corporate governance and legal strategy advice, as well as various litigation and regulatory matters.
- TPG in numerous matters, including in bankruptcy proceedings and multiple state and federal court actions concerning portfolio company Caesars Entertainment, and in obtaining injunctive relief against a former employee for breaching confidentiality obligations.
- Douglas Elliman Realty, one of the largest real estate brokerage firms in the country, in numerous employment, contract, intellectual property and commercial matters.
- Gerard Hug, the former Chief Executive Officer of SITO Mobile, a mobile data advertising company, in a federal securities fraud civil enforcement action brought by the SEC, alleging that Mr. Hug engaged in fraud by improperly charging expenses to corporate accounts, which caused the company to materially understate Mr. Hug’s executive compensation. The District Court of New Jersey granted Kasowitz’s motion to dismiss the complaint in its entirety.
- Advising a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) in connection with investigations by the SEC and DOJ, and related litigation.
- The borrowers in a $650 million commercial real estate foreclosure action involving the property at 20 Times Square.
- MBIA, one of the world’s largest monoline insurers, in litigation brought by 18 of the world’s largest banks seeking to overturn MBIA’s corporate restructuring which, with the approval of the New York Department of Insurance, established a separate company for MBIA’s municipal bond insurance business. After a several-week evidentiary proceeding, the New York Supreme Court upheld MBIA’s restructuring, and MBIA received $1.7 billion in cash and a $500 million line of credit for its municipal bond insurance business.
- Woodstock 50 in its highly publicized legal battle against its former financing partner Dentsu, a Japanese marketing and advertising company, which abruptly pulled its financing of the music festival celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival. The New York State Supreme Court agreed with Kasowitz in ruling that Dentsu did not have the right under the parties’ contract to unilaterally cancel Woodstock 50.
- MDC Energy, an independent oil and gas E&P company, as debtors' counsel in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, and related litigations.
- Fairfax Financial Holdings, the largest insurance company in Canada, in recovering $31 million, including winning a jury verdict of $5.4 million in compensatory damages against hedge fund Exis Capital and a $5.5 million jury verdict in punitive damages against Exis Capital and two former executives in a New Jersey RICO case involving blatant insider trading, market manipulation and short selling attacks by hedge funds and investment firms. Defendant Morgan Keegan settled with Fairfax for $20 million shortly before trial. Fairfax secured additional settlements with other defendants.
- Federal Housing Finance Agency, as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in actions in federal and state courts against numerous financial institutions and individuals. The lawsuits sought rescission or damages from the banks for, among other things, their misrepresentations concerning pools of mortgage loans that underlie residential mortgage-backed securities the banks issued, securitized and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After prevailing on critical pre-trial issues, FHFA settled the actions brought by Kasowitz for over $2 billion, including a $1.25 billion settlement with Morgan Stanley.
- Harbinger Capital in restructuring its $2 billion investment in LightSquared, including related litigation by Harbinger against Dish Network and the FCC.
- FinancialApps, a developer of financial services software, in its suit against Envestnet, a $3 billion wealth management software provider, and its subsidiary Yodlee, a consumer financial data aggregator, alleging theft of FinApps’ valuable proprietary information and trade secrets to unlawfully develop software products that compete with FinApps.
- Liggett Group as national counsel in smoking and health litigation for over 20 years and in conceiving, negotiating and implementing the first-ever settlement of smoking and health litigation, including health care cost recovery actions brought by state attorneys general. These Liggett settlements led to industry-wide settlements and revolutionary changes in industry conduct, as well as extraordinary financial benefits for Liggett.
- Association of Financial Guaranty Insurers, a trade association comprised of the leading monoline insurers, in a successful First Circuit argument that a Puerto Rican law allowing Puerto Rico, rather than Congress, to restructure its debt was unconstitutional and preempted by the Federal Bankruptcy Code.
- Source Interlink Distribution and Source Interlink Companies in an antitrust action alleging that leading magazine publishers and distributors conspired to force Source out of the wholesale single-issue magazine market. One commentator noted: “Standing in the way of the publishers’ alleged conspiracy, like Superman in front of a speeding locomotive, has been Kasowitz Benson.” The case settled on favorable terms.
- Private equity funds Apollo Management, Centerbridge Capital Partners, Fortress Investment Group, TPG Capital and others in disputes in large leveraged buyout transactions. Marc formulated the litigation strategy for disputes with target companies regarding material adverse effect clauses, post-merger insolvency and specific performance, and disputes with major banks regarding funding of debt financing commitments.
- Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as lead trial counsel in the five-week trial concerning the Port Authority’s alleged liability for personal injury, wrongful death and business interruption damages arising from the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. The New York Court of Appeals dismissed the action on the basis of a governmental immunity defense developed by Marc.
- Apollo Management and its portfolio company, Hexion Specialty Chemicals, in litigation arising from Hexion’s proposed $15 billion merger with Huntsman Chemicals. Marc prosecuted an expedited proceeding against Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank to compel specific performance of the banks’ commitments to fund the acquisition, and successfully negotiated a settlement with Huntsman. The Wall Street Journal lauded the settlement as a “sweet deal” for Apollo and Hexion.
- Celanese Chemicals as national counsel for mass product liability litigation concerning allegedly defective plumbing systems installed in six million homes nationwide. In addition to winning several trials, Marc also negotiated and gained final approval for one of the largest product liability class action settlements in history, and successfully defended that settlement against constitutional law challenges in federal and state trial and appellate courts around the country.
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