Three Texas legal aid providers located in North Texas, the Houston area and South Texas, are receiving $2.5 million from a Congress-founded nonprofit to assist in their efforts to represent low-income Texans impacted by Winter Storm Uri and other natural disasters. The money will go toward expanding resources and reimbursement for legal services already provided.
Litigation Roundup: Double Legal Trouble for Elon Musk, TX Billionaire Spared in SPAC Suit, Revenge Porn Ruling
In this week’s roundup, we have two new lawsuits, a venue change, a new SEC enforcement action, a ruling denying a request for a new trial, a revenge porn final judgment, a loss for Ken Paxton and a tentative dismissal of an investor lawsuit involving Tilman Fertitta.
Litigation Roundup: Stanford Trial Date, Social Media Addiction, Jerry Jones’ Daddy Issues
A challenge to a high-profile patent that endangers a multibillion-dollar verdict. An SEC settlement worth hundreds-of-millions involving a Texas-based financial services giant. An Texas-based airline sued for a passenger’s wrongful arrest. All this and more in this week’s litigation roundup.
Corban Addison’s Wastelands Gives Scoop Behind Pork Producer Nuisance Trials
A new legal thriller out this month details the story of some Texas plaintiff’s lawyers who took on the pork industry’s most powerful player, a formidable opponent that provoked death threats, had the legal team followed and even changed some laws in the middle of the five-year nuisance litigation that resulted in five jury verdicts totaling hundreds-of-millions. The Lawbook sat down with Wastelands author Corban Addison Thursday when his book tour brought him to Dallas.
Litigation Roundup: A Trial, An Italian Food Fight, An Indecent Job-Seeker
After years of operating the Corporate Deal Tracker Weekly Roundup, it dawned on The Lawbook staff that we should run something similar on the litigation end.
The idea budded out of a need to keep track of more litigation than our small staff is able to in the context of substantive, standalone articles. That way we can help you (and ourselves) keep abreast of even more of the Texas-sized quantity of lawsuits, trials, settlements, or other notable developments that fill business litigation dockets daily across the state.
We’re yet to develop any formal rules or structure to it, so in the meantime, we’re giving the first roundup a go with a handful of matters that have caught our eye in the last week.
If you have any matters that you think are worthy of a mention in a future roundup, please email your submission here: tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net
Judge Finds IBM Committed Fraud, Awards BMC $1.6B
A Houston federal judge on Monday found IBM committed fraud against Houston-based BMC Software in a dispute involving IBM’s removal of BMC’s mainframe products from their largest mutual client, AT&T, during an outsourcing project several years ago. The price tag? More than $1.6 billion, including a $717 million punitive damages figure that BMC never specified during trial.
Phillips 66 Sued for Trade Secret Misappropriation
A lawsuit now made public pits Phillips 66 and Propel Fuels against one another and involves claims that P66 misappropriated Propel’s trade secrets after a deal fell through.
AZA IP Lawyers Spin Off into New Firm
Seven intellectual property lawyers have left the Houston litigation boutique Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing to practice law at a spinoff firm, Alavi Anaipakos, Natalie Posgate reports. The group departure follows the exit of former AZA name partners Demetrios Anaipakos and Amir Alavi, who left at the end of March.
Q&A: David Stryker
Premium-Only Content: David Stryker goes into the keys to overcoming the challenges in the Starboard proxy battle and what’s next.
David Stryker’s Successfully Litigious Year
For more than four years, Huntsman Corp. and its General Counsel David Stryker fought a high-stakes legal battle over an acquisition of a company whose technology ended up not working. Stryker and Huntsman hired the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to sue for fraud and breach of contract. In 2021, Huntsman and Kirkland won, securing an arbitration victory that led to a $665 million settlement. More recently, Huntsman and Stryker secured a $94 million jury verdict in New Orleans in a separate lawsuit. Stryker’s recent wins came in quick succession, but they were the product of the deep-seated instinct for advocacy that has coursed through Stryker’ veins since the day he became a trial lawyer. The 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year goes to Stryker and the lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis.