John is joined by Susheel Kirpalani, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and founder and Chairperson of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group. They discuss restructuring litigation, including fraudulent transfer litigation and valuation disputes, and how it differs from commercial litigation. They also discuss the importance of building alliances with other stakeholders in the company, how much the practice is based on relationships and trust, and the opportunities that exist to design creative securities that allow a company to survive but also allow its creditors substantial recoveries. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi​

John is joined by Dan Brockett, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and Chair of the firm’s Financial Institution Litigation practice. They discuss how Dan and his team recently recovered over $581 million from JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Credit Suisse, as well as significant injunctive relief, in one of the largest antitrust class action settlements in history. They discuss how these large banks act as brokers profiting with little to no risk in $1.7 trillion stock loan market and how they allegedly agreed to boycott new technologies, particularly new electronic platforms, which posed a threat to the banks’ lucrative position. They also discuss how the case developed as a result of years of research by a Quinn Emanuel team at the firm’s expense, the five and a half year history of the litigation, and how a settlement was achieved in mediation after a Magistrate Judge recommended that the class be certified. Finally, they discuss the injunctive relief reforming the market that the Quinn Emanuel team was able to obtain. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi​

John is joined by Kevin Teruya, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office and Co-Chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Competition Practice and Adam Wolfson, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices who specializes in antitrust law. They discuss the recent antitrust case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Kevin and Adam explain how Live Nation provides nationwide concert promotion services while its subsidiary Ticketmaster sells concert tickets on both the primary and on the secondary markets and secures multi-year exclusive arrangements with a large percentage of the concert venues in the U.S. They also explain the companies’ history with the DOJ, including the consent decree entered into in 2010, the conditions and independent monitor imposed in that decree, and the decree’s extension for five more years in 2020. They then discuss the DOJ’s newly filed case alleging that the companies failed to comply with the decree and also created anti-competitive effects in the market resulting in higher fees for consumers. The DOJ alleges that the companies monopolized: (1) the market for primary ticketing services, (2) the market for large amphitheaters, and (3) the concert promotion business. The DOJ also alleges that the companies engaged in “exclusive dealing” arrangements through long term exclusive contracts with venues, and illegally tied concert promotion services to the use of venues with exclusive contracts with the companies. Kevin and Adam also explain the defenses Ticketmaster/Live Nation are likely to assert including that the concert promotion business is local, so market power in one location does not flow to others, that venues ask for exclusive arrangements, and that there is sufficient competition whenever these exclusive deals come up for renewal. They also discuss the likely testimony from industry competitors, venue operators and any performing artists who are willing to risk their income by challenging Ticketmaster/Live Nation. Finally, they discuss the pending consumer class action case against Ticketmaster/Live Nation that the firm filed before the new DOJ case and the likelihood that the DOJ case will trigger additional piggyback private antitrust cases against the companies.

John is joined by Richard V. Sandler, partner at Maron & Sandler and author of Witness to a Prosecution: The Myth of Michael Milken. Richard is the personal attorney and life-long friend of Michael Milken. He represented Michael in the 1986 federal investigation and prosecution off Drexel Burnham Lambert, and its High Yield and Convertible Bond Department, a department Michael created and was head of. Michael was the most successful and innovative financier of his time and Drexel, an upstart investment bank, was the most successful securities firm on Wall Street, thanks to Michael. Led by Drexel, the high yield bond market grew rapidly from the end of the 1970’s from $70 billion to over $2.2 trillion dollars in 2022. John and Richard discuss the highlights of what happened in the case, the tactical decisions and key turning points, and the lessons to be drawn from this historic prosecution. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by James Bremen, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s London office and Chair of the firm’s Construction and Engineering Practice. They discuss the complexities of construction litigation and arbitration, including the difficulty of litigating hundreds, if not thousands, of alleged breaches or deviations from the original contract, the ripple effect one change can have on a project’s schedule, and the issues a party must consider when deciding whether to terminate a contract. They also discuss the multiple parties and jurisdictions that may be involved in a dispute, the wide variety of experts who often testify, and the importance of selecting attorneys, mediators, arbitrators, and, when possible, judges who are familiar with this practice area, including the language and the specialized contracts involved. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi​

John is joined by Kimberly Carson, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York Office. They discuss the FTC’s recent rule banning contractual noncompete provisions in employment agreements nationwide. Kimberly explains that the new rule bans employers from enforcing existing noncompete provisions, entering new noncompete provisions, and representing that workers are subject to noncompete provisions. She also explains the exceptions to the new rule for existing noncompete provisions with senior executives who have final authority to make significant policy decisions, non-competes connected to the bona fide sale of a business, claims that have already accrued, and good faith mistakes about the applicability of the new rule. John and Kimberly also discuss the lawsuits that have been filed challenging the FTC’s new rule contending that the ban exceeds the FTC’s statutory authority, is impermissibly retroactive, and is supported by limited evidence and a flawed cost/benefit analysis. The court hearing these challenges has indicated it intends to rule on a preliminary injunction motion on July 3, 2024, before the rule would go into effect on September 3, 2024. Finally, they discuss some other avenues, other than non-competes, that companies have to protect their goodwill, trade secrets and investments including trade secret litigation, fixed duration contracts, provisions requiring employees to repay bonuses if they leave a company within a certain time, and “garden leave” provisions under which employees stay on the company payroll and are still subject to contractual and fiduciary duties for a time period after they are fired or resign.

John is joined by Richard East, Founder and Senior Partner in Quinn Emanuel's London office. They discuss Richard’s extensive experience litigating in the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) court, including Richard’s experience winning the only case that has gone all the way from beginning through trial and judgment in the ADGM. They discuss the ADGM Court’s unique features as a common law English court within the Abu Dhabi court system, the broad jurisdiction rules, which allow companies present in the ADGM to sue and be sued by foreign defendants, and the extremely modern digitized court facilities that allow parties to present their case efficiently through electronic transmissions. They also discuss the NMC Healthcare case, where Quinn Emanuel’s actions in the ADGM Court played a crucial role in protecting the company from creditor claims and facilitating a restructuring that allowed the company to emerge and trade as a solvent group. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Michael K. Young, Professor of Law and Former President of Texas A&M University, the University of Washington and the University of Utah. They discuss Michael’s career in higher education, starting with his years at Columbia Law School, including the two and a half years that he was a visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo, his establishment of the East Asian Legal Studies Center at Columbia and continuing through his service at the State Department where he negotiated treaties involving trade, international environmental law, human rights, and the terms under which Germany was unified. They then discuss Michael’s tenure as Dean of George Washington Law School and the University of Utah and, later, President of the University of Utah, the University of Washington, and Texas A&M University. Michael describes his current role at a research center that is preparing the entire educational system, from primary school through university, for the futuristic megacity project in Saudi Arabia called NEOM. Michael explains how his training as a lawyer helped him perform in these leadership positions by always maintaining his focus on the ends he is trying to achieve, the purpose of the institution and seeing both sides of each issue. Michael also explains several leadership lessons he has learned including that leaders need to genuinely listen and convey that they have listened, keep everyone focused on the institution’s mission, spread credit generously and take blame when thing go wrong. Finally, John and Michael discuss the current controversies over free speech at American campuses. Michael shares his approach to handling volatile situations with controversial speakers

John is joined by Christine Lehman, Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP and an accomplished trial attorney focusing on patent litigation. They discuss the $525 million verdict Christine and her team recently won against Amazon Web Services (AWS) for infringing tech company Kove’s patent rights in data-storage technology. Christine describes how she presented to the jury the journey of the inventor, John Overton, from his troubled youth in Kentucky, to majoring in religion in college, to developing a method to efficiently organize and index all the photographs he took on a yearlong bicycle trip across the country. He and co-inventor Stephen Bailey ultimately implemented this method in a way that allowed users to search millions of data items quickly and formed the basis for Kove’s patented technology. Christine also describes the extensive pretrial proceedings that occurred over the six years that the lawsuit against AWS was pending. John and Christine then discuss the ten-day trial itself, including the defendant’s last-minute decision to abandon its invalidity defense, the judge’s procedure for allowing jurors to submit questions to each witness, and how those questions informed her team about how well the jury understood the technical issues in the case. Finally, they discuss the different approaches taken by the two sides in presenting their experts and how Christine presented her client’s damages case leading to the $525 million verdict.

In this episode of “Law, disrupted," host John B. Quinn joins Christopher Bogart, CEO, Director, and Co-Founder of Burford Capital. Burford is the largest litigation finance firm in the world and is publicly traded on the New York and London Stock Exchanges In this conversation, Christopher drills down on what litigation funding is and explains how it can be a cost-effective financing tool for claimants and law firms by assuming the cost and risk of litigation. Together, Christopher and John explore what litigation finance deals look like, and what makes them an attractive investment proposition. They also consider whether litigation finance is more important outside the US, potential barriers to entry in this space, and the types of innovative litigation products in the pipeline, which could transform the legal industry.

In this episode of “Law, disrupted”, host John B. Quinn joins David Hobbs, Security Engineering Manager at Check Point Software Technologies. David has over two decades of experience in the security field, working with law enforcement agencies and training intelligence organizations in cyberwar and cyber defense technologies. The discussion begins by explaining what ransomware is and how the software spreads “like a virus” to corrupt systems and encrypt sensitive data. David outlines an increasing threat to public and private companies, drawing attention to a 68% share of US organizations who paid a ransom after experiencing an attack. (Statista 2020) The conversation moves on to dig deeper into who the hackers are, and to understand why a company may get targeted. They highlight noteworthy cyber incidents, and reflect on the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, which saw more than 200,000 computers become infected within three days. Together, David and John acknowledge an escalation in Russia-Ukraine cyber activity, and talk through the important steps that can be taken upon noticing—as well as preventing—future ransomware attacks. Created & produced by Podcast Partners: www.podcastpartners.com Sign up to receive updates by email when a new episode drops at: www.law-disrupted.fm Music by Alexander Rossi www.alexanderrossi.me Producer www.alexishyde.com Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm Host: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis Hyde Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Jesse Bernstein, Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York Office and Co-Chair of the Securities Litigation Practice. Jesse explains that the term “securities” applies not only to stocks and bonds, but arguably to any situation where a group of investors place their resources into a common entity where they expect to make profits from the efforts of others. He describes the sources of securities law, including state blue sky laws, the Securities Act of 1933 (which focuses on initial issuances), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (which focuses on intentional misrepresentations in securities transactions and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (which sought to curb perceived abuses in securities litigation by raising the pleading standards required to establish scienter and creating a safe harbor for forward looking statements). They discuss the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Moab Partners v. Macquarie Infrastructure that pure omissions of material fact are not actionable under Rule 10(b)(5) because the rule only covers affirmative misstatements. Jesse then explains how a Quinn Emanuel team obtained a jury verdict last year in Elon Musk’s favor in a rare securities class action trial on a $12 billion claim based on Mr. Musk’s tweet about taking Tesla private. He describes the arguments made concerning materiality and loss causation that ultimately led to the victory. Finally, they discuss upcoming issues in securities law including how the Macquarie decision will impact cases.