Expert perspectives on major court cases

The first place finalist this week is a team of Latham and Watkins who defended American Airlines against an attempt to quash its 2013 merger with US Airways. The company pushed back on TRO and injunction attempts by private plaintiffs to block the merger at the time, but U.S. bankruptcy judge Sean Lane held a week-long trial in what remained of the case in March. 2019. Lane returned a long awaited decision this week, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to fulfill their obligation to demonstrate that the merger had significantly dampened competition in the passenger airline market. Latham Partners Dan Wall and Sadik Huseny and associates Britt lovejoy, Aaron Chiu and Robin gushman all had standing roles at trial.

One of last week’s finalists wasted no time securing another win, or two, in fact. We told you last week on how Atif Khawaja and Jeremy Fielding of Kirkland and Ellis rejected an attempt by mortgage lender Caliber Home Loans to force client Sagent M&C to fulfill the terms of a short-term contract renewal. They had successfully argued in Dallas County, Texas District Court that the renewal was obtained based on the false claim that the deal would lead Sagent to land more in Caliber business as Caliber , in fact, had signed a long-term agreement with a competitor. Well, the day after that ruling, Caliber asked new attorneys to file an expedited appeal to the Texas Fifth Circuit of Appeals. After an expedited briefing, the appeals court rejected Caliber’s emergency offer to force Sagent to provide services and referred the dispute to the trial court. On the same day as that decision, Caliber filed an amended complaint and an application for TRO in the trial court, which the presiding judge dismissed.

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