James J. Stricker's practice focuses on complex civil litigation, including class action litigation in courts throughout the country involving general commercial law, employment law, securities law, and product liability and toxic tort actions. Jim has represented a wide variety of clients, including chemical companies, utilities, food conglomerates, telecommunication companies, and financial institutions.
Jim has been recognized as a Client Service All-Star by The BTI Consulting Group, an annual list recognizing leading law firms and attorneys identified by corporate counsel as delivering superior client service.
Work Highlights
- People’s United Bank in defense of a securities class action asserted by hundreds of investors in the Jay Peak EB-5 projects.
- Bimbo Bakeries USA (the largest bakery company in the United States) against claims of independent contractors for employee benefits throughout the state of New York, including at administrative proceedings and appeals.
- A leading financial institution in the successful defense of a multi-million employment arbitration filed by a former Chief Investment Officer. After the arbitration hearing, all claims of the CIO were dismissed.
- Global Crossing Telecommunications in defense of an action filed by A.T. Kearney seeking additional fees relating to a consulting agreement filed in the Southern District of New York. After a four-day trial, all claims against Global Crossing were dismissed, and judgment was entered in favor of it.
- 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.
- Level 3 Communications, one of the largest telecommunications providers in the country, in its action against Switch & Data Management Company to prevent S&D from effectively shutting down large portions of Level 3’s international network as a result of a contract dispute, successfully obtaining a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction preventing S&D from taking any action to prevent Level 3 from obtaining the benefits under the contract.
- Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Lloyds TSB Bank in actions against investment banks, indenture trustees, rating agencies and accountants, asserting violations of federal securities and New Jersey Blue Sky laws relating to losses on holdings of more than $250 million of financial instruments issued by National Century Financial Enterprises. The FBI has described this action as one of the largest corporate fraud cases ever brought involving a privately-held company.
- Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, New York Life Insurance Company, Angelo Gordon & Co. and other investors in their action against State Street Bank and Trust Company seeking tens of millions of dollars arising from State Street’s failure to deliver a document to a collateral trustee, resulting in the plaintiffs receiving less in the issuer’s bankruptcy proceedings, successfully obtaining the seminal decision by the New York Court of Appeals establishing that an indenture trustee owes note holders an extra-contractual obligation to perform basic, non-discretionary, ministerial functions even prior to an event of default.
- Celanese Chemicals in defense of a series of individual, multi-plaintiff and putative class actions arising from the alleged release of toxic chemicals from a railcar while it was stopped in New Orleans; we successfully defeated plaintiffs' motion for class certification and obtained dismissal of all of the putative class claims.
- George Weston Bakeries, the baker of Entenmann’s®, Thomas’ English Muffins®, Freihofer®, Stroehman’s® and other fresh baked products, in defense of Sherman and Robinson-Patman Act claims filed by distributors of its products, successfully obtaining the dismissal of all antitrust claims.
- Murray Capital Management in its securities fraud action against Exide Technologies, asserting Section 10(b) and 20(a) claims relating to Exide's securities offering, successfully defeating Exide's motion to dismiss the action, which resulted in a confidential settlement.
- ePrize, the leading internet interactive promotions firm, in defense of claims by an investment banking firm for fees in connection with financing.
- Level 3 Communications in its action against Tyco Telecommunications alleging that a $250 million trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cable was improperly designed and installed, resulting in repeated "shunt faults" in the cable at the bottom of the ocean.
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