Complex Business Disputes

Whether representing publicly-traded companies, private companies, or entrepreneurs, we approach litigation in a highly practical manner, evaluating available strategies in view of the client’s business needs.

Overview

Our litigators’ deep experience in complex commercial litigation matters spans the spectrum of business transactions and relationships. We represent a broad range of public and private companies as well as entrepreneurs. Some industries with which we have particular familiarity include healthcare, food and drug, financial institutions, and commercial real estate, in which we represent developers, owners, partnerships, and joint ventures.

We represent clients in federal and state courts, in domestic and international arbitration, and in mediation. Our emphasis on learning the facts and identifying the relevant legal issues quickly and thoroughly allows us to provide our clients with maximum strategic flexibility.

We staff our clients’ cases with an experienced team of professionals to address the specific complexities of a given dispute. Using this approach, we have successfully handled disputes relating to securities claims, corporate governance and special investigations, contracts, fraud and misrepresentation claims, fiduciary duty claims, intellectual property, and business competition issues, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, employment, ERISA, commercial real estate, and insurance coverage issues.

Because electronic discovery (e-discovery) plays such an important role in litigation outcomes and costs, we made it our job to become highly knowledgeable in the techniques, technology, and strategies that maximize our clients’ e-discovery benefits and minimize its burdens. Our e-discovery specialists help clients manage their electronic information so that the cost and business disruption of e-discovery are minimized. At the same time, we work strategically to obtain the right electronic information from the opposing side, using highly targeted and effective discovery requests.

Our litigators participate in a number of professional organizations that provide resources throughout the nation and the world to help meet the needs of our clients. As leaders in the American Bar Association, and its Section of Litigation and Section of International Law, our attorneys not only stay current on developments in litigation as well as domestic and international arbitration, but can help clients identify counsel or other resources needed to meet specific expertise and/or geographic requirements.

Additional Specialties

  • Directors & Officers Litigation
    We routinely represent directors and officers in litigation arising out of their corporate duties and responsibilities, including in derivative and class actions arising out of tender offers, going private transactions, mergers and acquisitions, securities issues, creditor or trustee claims in bankruptcy, shareholder demand letters, and Special Committee investigations. We also assist corporations, directors and officers, and insurance companies with coverage issues related to director & officer (D&O) policies and we work closely with D&O insurance carriers.

Experience

  • Defense of a client, a closely-held corporation, in a breach of contract action brought by three multinational corporations with regard to a sophisticated medical device developed by the client.  Following a three-week bench trial, AGG was successful in obtaining a preliminary ruling that denied nearly all of the plaintiffs’ claims, denied the plaintiffs’ claim for damages, and granted a majority of the client’s counterclaims, including a determination that plaintiffs had no rights to the client’s new medical device.
  • Obtained a $7.6 million jury verdict on behalf of a family-owned company in a suit against the CEO and CFO of a publicly-traded company for fraud in the sale of the defendants’ personal shares of the company.  The judgment was affirmed on appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Persuaded the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota to dismiss a declaratory judgment action brought under Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act of 1934 based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  Because our client, a publicly-traded corporation, did not have a private right of action to compel the plaintiff to register with the SEC, we successfully argued that the court did not have jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action by the plaintiff seeking a ruling that it had no obligation to register its shares.
  • Defense of one of the nation’s largest operators of skilled nursing facilities in a suit in the New York Supreme Court involving claims of aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and alleged breach of a $120 million loan agreement.
  • Initiated action in New York Supreme Court on behalf of a tenant under a long-term master lease covering over 160 nursing home facilities to resist and enjoin commercial landlords’ attempt to increase aggregate base rent by approximately $13 million per year.
  • Represented a publicly-traded medical products company in a lawsuit arising out of the breach and termination of an exclusive distribution agreement.
  • Obtained an arbitration award of $3 million for the rescission of the securities purchase agreement based on the seller’s breach of the simultaneously executed marketing agreement.
  • Represented a private investor in a 10b-5 claim, alleging churning and lack of suitability, in a two-week jury trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, resulting in a jury verdict against two broker-dealers.
  • Representation of a bank trustee in bankruptcy and adversary proceedings in Connecticut and Delaware in connection with the trustee’s assertion that the estate and certain taxing authorities are entitled to over $45 million in escrowed funds from the sale of the debtor’s assets, despite the claims of certain allegedly secured creditors.
  • Successfully defended a commodities brokerage firm and its agent in a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against allegations of misleading a buyer in the exercise of a commodities hedge account.
  • Represented a group of shareholders in the Northern District of Georgia in a breach of contract action involving a contractual obligation to maintain an active shelf registration for their benefit.  After obtaining summary judgment on liability as a result of a suspension of the shelf registration, we appealed the damages award to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which certified the case to the Supreme Court of Delaware for a determination of the appropriate measure of damages. After an argument in the Supreme Court of Delaware, that Court issued an opinion supporting our position for the application of a novel measure of damages. The Delaware opinion resulted in the damages award being reversed by the Eleventh Circuit and remanded to the District Court.
  • Obtained summary judgment in the District Court for the Middle District of Georgia in favor of the client, the individual guarantor of limited partnership’s obligations under a bank loan agreement from a breach of contract claim by the bank. Thereafter, after a jury trial, obtained a verdict in favor of the client against the bank for tortious interference in the fiduciary duties of the general partner of the limited partnership.
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