Fifth Circuit Hears Mining Companies’ Bid to Undo Pecan Farm’s Jury Win

Just east of Austin, Martin Marietta Materials and TXI Operations operate a sand and gravel mine on the banks of the Colorado River. Their neighbor across the river, on the northern bank, is Good River Farms, a 377-acre pecan farm containing about 8,000 trees that has been owned and operated by the Wimberly family since 1959. This lawsuit was spawned from a major rain event — described as a 120-year flood — that hit the area on Oct. 30, 2015.

April 4, 2024 Michelle Casady

Bloomberg Law: Alfredo Perez to be Next SDTX Bankruptcy Judge

If approved, Perez would join his former Weil Gotshal law partner, Judge Christopher Lopez, as one of the bankruptcy judges handling big cases in Houston.

April 4, 2024 Mark Curriden

Susman Godfrey’s 2023: The Best Financial Year Ever for a Texas Law Firm

Susman Godfrey co-managing partner Vineet Bhatia told The Texas Lawbook that the Houston-based firm "had a pretty good year in 2023.” In fact, it was the single best financial year for any law firm's Texas operations in history. Texas Lawbook 50 data research shows that the 110 lawyers for Susman Godfrey in Texas doubled their revenue and nearly doubled their profits per partner over 2022. Keep in mind, 2022 was also a record financial year for the firm.

The firm's Texas lawyers scored some monumental courtroom victories — most of them coming with hefty contingency fee paydays. Bhatia called it "an alignment of the stars" and added, “We had a lot of happy partners.”

April 4, 2024 Mark Curriden

FW SEC Office Penalizes NY Investment Firm $6.5M for Failure to Preserve Electronic Records

According to an SEC order, employees of Senvest Management, which oversees $3 billion in assets, repeatedly discussed company business in personal texts and other “off-channel” platforms in violation of federal securities laws.

April 3, 2024 Bruce Tomaso

Fifth Circuit Zeroes in on ‘Act of State Doctrine’ in Fight Between Heirs, Museum Over Painting

A doctrine intended to keep courts from second-guessing official actions of foreign governments was front-and-center during oral arguments Tuesday before a Fifth Circuit panel tasked with deciding whether to revive a lawsuit brought by a family that alleges a work of art sold under duress to a Nazi art dealer in the 1930s belongs to them and not the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

April 3, 2024 Michelle Casady

Houston GCs of the Year — Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Finalists

Phillips 66 General Counsel Vanessa Allen Sutherland and Vopak General Counsel Hugo Teste have been named the Houston GCs of the Year for large and small corporate legal departments, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook. ACC Houston and The Lawbook also announce that McDermott Chief Legal Officer Rachel Clingman and Mitsui U.S.A. General Counsel Linda Primrose have been named finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department, while Cardinal System Holdings GC Sara-Ashley Moreno and PURIS CLO Thomas Gottsegen are finalists for the Houston General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department. The Lawbook previously announced the finalists for M&A Transaction of the Year, Business Litigation of the Year, Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion and Senior Counsel of the Year for small, midsized and large corporate legal departments.

April 3, 2024 Mark Curriden

Tesla Urges Fifth Circuit to Revive Suit Over Louisiana Direct Sales Ban 

Texas’ direct-to-consumer sales law is similar to Louisiana’s. A decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit panel could have implications for Texas, where Tesla has unsuccessfully lobbied to overturn the law.

April 2, 2024 Krista Torralva

Houston Appeals Court: Winter Storm Uri Cases Against Transmission and Distribution Giants to Move Forward

The Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston ruled Tuesday that 20,000 plaintiffs in wrongful death, personal injury and other Winter Storm Uri-related lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages from Texas electric transmission and distribution utilities may move forward to trial. The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that trial judge Sylvia Matthews was correct in allowing allegations of gross negligence and intentional misconduct to proceed against the TDUs, which include CenterPoint Energy, Oncor Electric Delivery and American Electric Power, but that charges of common-law negligence and strict-liability nuisance are prohibited by state law. Legal experts say the Fourteenth Court’s opinion is a partial win for both sides.

April 2, 2024 Mark Curriden

SLB Scoops Up ChampionX for $7.7B

Latham & Watkins was the main outside counsel advising SLB while Weil assisted ChampionX. The combination is expected to expand SLB’s presence in the less cyclical and growing production and recovery space.

April 2, 2024 Claire Poole

CDT Roundup: 12 Deals, 8 Firms, 136 Lawyers, $9.3B

The end of Q1 this week suggests a healthy M&A market during the opening round of 2024, with deal volumes rising globally by 26 percent, with the U.S. volumes even high and topping the $400 billion value mark, according to data from Dealogic. Claire Poole examines the deals behind the data in this week's CDT Roundup and reviews the Easter week action on the Texas M&A front.

April 2, 2024 Claire Poole