Cases With Impact
Our practice involves high-stakes disputes. This means cases where there are substantial dollars at issue, significant political and reputational risk for the litigants, or precedent-setting legal issue—and often all three.
Below is a sample of the cases we are currently litigating.
Antitrust Class Action Against Wall Street Banks
In re Credit Default Swaps Auctions Litigation (D. N. M.)
We allege that 10 Wall Street banks created, and then manipulated, the auction process used in the valuation of certain financial instruments, causing artificial prices for the banks' own benefit. On behalf of the New Mexico Attorney General's Office and multiple public institutional investors, we filed a federal class action against the banks.
WeChat Users & NGO Sue Tencent for Censorship
Citizen Power Initiatives for China, et al. v. Tencent America LLC, et al. (Cal. Super. Ct.)
Can it really be that, if you want to interact online with Chinese people in California—that is, if you want to use WeChat in California—you have to subject yourself to the censorship and surveillance of the Chinese Communist Party? And should you really be at risk of losing your business if you don’t comply? Because that is what we allege is happening right now, every day, including to our clients. We don’t think that’s right, fair, just, or lawful. So, we sued Tencent to force them to stop being so complicit with the CCP, at least in California. Tencent tried to get the case moved out of California’s court system, and into private arbitration, but we were able to persuade the court to reject that effort. The case is now on appeal over that issue.
Pursuing an International Investment Scam
Mari Kusada, et al. v. Jialin Niu, et al. (Wash. Super. Ct.)
We represent a group of investors seeking tens of millions of dollars in a fraud suit against a pair of scammers who we allege falsely claimed to have been financial experts who were creating China's first real estate investment trust, but in reality were running a Ponzi-like scheme while siphoning investor money into their own pockets. The case is currently on appeal.
Chinese Dissidents Claim Breach of Trust over Misused Fund
He Depu, et al v. Oath Holdings (formerly, Yahoo! Inc.), et al. (D.D.C.)
To settle a controversy over its complicity in the jailing of a journalist by the Chinese government, Yahoo in 2007 created a $17.3 million charitable trust fund for imprisoned dissidents. But extreme mismanagement by both Yahoo and the nonprofit it worked with led to the vast majority of the money being frittered away, with only about 5% ever being spent on helping the trust's intended beneficiaries. We sued Yahoo and the nonprofit in federal court to make them pay for their gross breaches of trust, and to restore and replenish the fund so that the trust's original mission of helping imprisoned dissidents can finally be carried out in a meaningful way. The defendants have fought tooth and nail to escape accountability, but we won an appeal, and then we won a trial on the issue of whether Yahoo intended to create a trust. We are now preparing for a trial on the remaining issues. Our work in this case was covered by the MIT Technology Review. The article is available here.
Assault Victim Seeks Justice against Chinese Government
Jie Qiao v. People’s Republic of China (D.D.C.)
Qiao Jie has been fighting judicial corruption in China for years after suffering major business losses because of such corruption. She eventually moved to the U.S., where she continued her activism in the streets of Washington, DC. But then thugs from the Chinese embassy assaulted her on U.S. soil, causing life-altering injuries that have left her wheelchair bound. On her behalf, we filed a federal lawsuit against the Chinese government directly, under an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Class Action Against Amazon's Unfair Business Practices
Tafari Mbadiwe and Rachel Miller v. Amazon, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.)
Say you have a clothing company and want to do online sales on both your own website, as well as on Amazon. Amazon’s fees are so high that your own website’s price for a given product could be significantly lower than on Amazon and you could still make the same profit. The problem is that, for years, Amazon prohibited sellers from setting that lower price. This practice, we think, violated the antitrust and related laws of several states, and caused consumers to pay higher prices. We recently filed a class action in federal court on behalf of such consumers.