Business & Commercial Litigation

Ropes & Gray is regularly recognized as a leading practice by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Legal 500, and Benchmark Litigation, with practitioners highly ranked in multiple jurisdictions. 

Our successes include:

• Obtained dismissal of two breach of contract actions, on behalf of Shire and Novartis, filed by former stockholders of SARcode Bioscience Inc. in the Delaware Court of Chancery in which those stockholders sought $425 million in damages for alleged failure to make certain milestone payments pursuant to a merger agreement. We secured a first dismissal when the Court of Chancery held that our client did not owe the milestone payments under the clear language of the merger agreement, and a second dismissal when the Court later held that res judicata barred the stockholders from obtaining extensive data under the information rights provision of the merger agreement to further pursue their claim to the milestone payments
• Won a decisive trial victory for TravelCenters of America (TA), a leading truck stop operator, in an expedited proceeding arising out of the wrongful termination of a business-critical contract by TA’s primary payment processor, resulting in the recovery of tens of millions in overcharges and fees. A post-trial opinion and judgment was issued in favor of TA and against the defendant, Comdata Inc., an industry-leading credit card issuer that processes the fuel transactions for the bulk of TA’s trucking fleet customers.
• Obtained dismissal of $1 billion in fraudulent conveyance claims in the Southern District of New York as lead defense counsel for funds that invested in Jones Group Inc. (later known as Nine West) prior to its leveraged buyout and subsequent bankruptcy.
• Trial counsel for Elliott Management Corp. and several affiliated investment funds in expedited bankruptcy litigations that center on Energy Future Holdings’ multiple attempts to sell their interest in Oncor, a regulated utility company in Texas, and emerge from long-running Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Secured extremely favorable decisions in connection with two contested transactions, which ultimately paved the way for a topping bid that provided creditors with significantly higher recoveries.
• Represent national pharmacies and grocers in federal and state courts against insurers alleging false prescription drug price reporting.
• Represented The TJX Companies, Inc. and certain subsidiaries in two consumer class actions in California and New York challenging TJX's price advertising practices under state consumer protection statutes.
• Won a motion to dismiss a putative health care-fraud class action brought against a leading pharmacy chain alleging common-law fraud and violations of the Illinois consumer protection statute based on alleged improper Medicare billing for insulin.
• Represent a leading private equity firm and related parties in a number of lawsuits related to a former portfolio company’s default on high-yield debt. The plaintiffs, which include liquidators, an indenture trustee and bondholders, as­sert claims in excess of $2 billion in multiple actions brought in state and federal courts. Two prior federal court cases have resulted in decisions by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals favorable to our clients, and we have achieved multiple dismissals of various actions.
• Represented Boston Children’s Hospital in litigation concerning the Hospital’s $1 billion modernization and expansion. Successfully defeated three preliminary injunction attempts, and successfully defeated a challenge to a determination of need, brought by opponents of a much needed modernization and expansion project to build, among other things, a state-of-the-art NICU and heart center at the hospital.
• Won dismissal with prejudice for leading private equity firm GTCR on the eve of a bellwether trial in the highly publicized toxic tort litigation, In re Willowbrook Ethylene Oxide Litigation.
• Represented a global medical device maker in an arbi­tration arising out of a long-term commercial agreement with a supplier. The supplier claimed that our client materially breached that agreement, purported to terminate the agreement and demanded $415 million in damages. At the outset of the dispute, we secured a pre­liminary injunction barring the supplier from terminat­ing the parties’ agreement during the pendency of the arbitration. We then represented the client in a four-day arbitration hearing in which we examined an array of fact and expert witnesses. On the eve of the arbitrator’s award, the parties reached a private settlement on terms favorable to our client.
• Secured dismissal of fraud and contract claims brought against a private equity company in federal class action lawsuits related to the closure of a subsidiary of one of its portfolio companies, a for-profit law school.