COSTA MESA (November 2, 2015) — Greenberg Gross LLP is pleased to announce that U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers have once again listed the firm among the “Best Law Firms.” Greenberg Gross is ranked among the top firms in the metropolitan area of Orange County for the practice areas of Commercial Litigation and White-Collar Criminal Defense.

Firms included in the annual listing have demonstrated professional excellence and received “persistently impressive ratings from clients and peers,” according to the publications. Achieving a ranking “signals a unique combination of quality law practice and breadth of legal expertise.”

“We are proud and honored to be selected once again for inclusion in Best Law Firms,” said managing partner Alan Greenberg. “We are deeply gratified that our clients and fellow attorneys recognize our dedication and passion and that they have endorsed us for this prestigious list every year since our founding.”

Despite being less than three years old, Greenberg Gross has gathered an impressive list of clients and already ranks among the elite law firms in the region. Its recent trial victories include a multimillion-dollar award, including punitive damages, on a counterclaim in a corporate M&A case for a publicly traded Swiss global engineering company and a seven-figure jury verdict on behalf of a client defrauded out of his share of the $43 million sale of a chain of dialysis centers.

In a recent pretrial victory, Greenberg Gross obtained the dismissal of a $600 million RICO claim asserted against a large, prominent law firm.

Current cases include nationally and internationally significant litigation, such as the defense of financial giant AIG, a fraud action on behalf of a London-based investment firm against a billion dollar private equity fund, a gender discrimination lawsuit by an in-house attorney against Broadcom, and a diesel emissions class action against Volkswagen.

Greenberg Gross partners Alan Greenberg, Wayne Gross, and Michael Katz were recently selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2016. Greenberg was chosen for his work in commercial litigation, Gross in the practice area of white-collar criminal defense, and Katz for intellectual property litigation.

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For additional information, please visit www.GGTrialLaw.com.

COSTA MESA — Greenberg Gross LLP has filed a national class action in federal court against Volkswagen for deliberately deceiving consumers by installing software to evade emissions tests and misrepresent emissions of alleged “clean diesel” vehicles sold in the United States.

With this lawsuit, Greenberg Gross brings its broad and impressive experience in high-stakes litigation to the Volkswagen diesel controversy. The growing law firm has triumphed in major class actions recently, including ones involving Lowe’s Home Improvement and the American Automobile Association.

The class action complaint, filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California, accuses Volkswagen of intentionally installing emissions “defeat devices” in diesel vehicles in order to evade federal and California clean air standards.

“Volkswagen arrogantly cheated hundreds of thousands of its own customers out of the clean, efficient vehicles for which they paid a premium,” managing partner Alan A. Greenberg said. “In its quest to be the No. 1 automaker in the world, Volkswagen also cheated everyone around the globe who is forced to inhale the high levels of pollutants spewed out by the supposedly clean diesel engines.”

The company “actively concealed or suppressed these material facts since at least since 2009 in order to profit from the sale of these vehicles, thereby defrauding Plaintiff and consumers,” the complaint states. The lawsuit accuses Volkswagen Group of America Inc., Audi AG, and parent company Volkswagen AG of fraud, false advertising, breach of required warranties, and violations of federal and California statutes. Davis v. Volkswagen Group of America Inc., 8:15-cv-01571 (C.D. Cal., filed Sept. 30, 2015).

Greenberg Gross filed the action on behalf of Allen Davis of Huntington Beach and all other buyers of Volkswagen and Audi diesel vehicles afflicted with the fraudulent “clean diesel” software. Davis owns a 2011 Audi A3 TDI he purchased from a prior owner.

If he and other purchasers had known about the defeat devices, they would have paid less for their vehicles or not bought them at all. But because of Volkswagen’s fraud, their cars have plummeted in value according to the complaint.

Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, admitted September 18 that it had hidden the defeat devices in as many as 11 million Volkswagen and Audi cars and sports wagons manufactured from 2009 to 2015. “Our company was dishonest, with the EPA and the California Air Resources board, and with all of you and in my German words, we have totally screwed up,” said Michael Horn, chief executive of the Volkswagen Group of America.

The illicit software rigs the affected cars’ and wagons’ emission control systems to operate properly only during official emissions testing. On the open road, the defeat devices turn off the control systems, which causes the vehicles to discharge as much as 40 times the amount of air pollutants allowed by federal law.

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 For additional information, please visit www.GGTrialLaw.com.

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Orange County Business Journal
by Wayne R. Gross and Howard M. Privette
October 19, 2015

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The first major policy initiative launched by the Department of Justice under new Attorney General Loretta Lynch is clear and unequivocal. In a September 9, 2015, memorandum, Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates declared that “one of the most effective ways to combat corporate misconduct is by seeking accountability from the individuals who perpetrated the wrongdoing.” The Yates Memo reveals that Justice Department attorneys are now operating under a top-level directive to “focus on individuals” in all cases involving allegations of “corporate fraud and misconduct.”

It is imperative that corporate counsel and other corporate officers and directors consider and understand the potential consequences of the six policy points set forth in the Yates Memo. These policies reflect a renewed emphasis by the Justice Department on investigating and charging corporate employees, officers, and directors. Briefly summarized, the six policies set forth in the Yates Memo are:

• To be eligible for any credit for cooperating with a government investigation, a corporation must provide the government with “all relevant facts about the individuals involved in corporate misconduct.”
• Both criminal and civil corporate investigations should focus on individuals from the inception of the investigations.
• Criminal and civil attorneys handling corporate investigations for the government should be in routine communications with each other.
• Except in “extraordinary circumstances,” no settlement or other resolution by a corporation will be allowed to provide protection for any individuals from criminal or civil liability.
• Investigations and cases involving corporations should not be resolved without a clear plan by government attorneys to resolve related individual cases.

Civil attorneys for the government should consistently focus on individuals as well as the corporation and should evaluate whether to file a lawsuit against an individual based on considerations beyond that individual’s ability to pay.

For the companies themselves, the first of these policies may be the most relevant. Companies that learn of potential legal violations face important decisions about whether and how to alert and inform the relevant authorities. Under existing policies and practices of the Justice Department and the SEC, for example, companies that self-report violations may receive “credit” for “cooperation” when decisions are later made about whether and how to bring charges or to seek penalties and damages for those violations. Under the Yates Memo, however, a company will not receive any “credit” from the Justice Department unless it first “completely disclose[s] to the Department all relevant facts about individual misconduct.” This new policy requires the company to “identify all individuals involved in or responsible for the misconduct at issue, regardless of their position, status or seniority, and provide to the Department all facts relating to that misconduct.” Indeed, Ms. Yates was quite blunt about the new policy in a speech delivered the day after issuing her memo: “It’s all or nothing. No more picking and choosing what gets disclosed. No more partial credit for cooperation that doesn’t include information about individuals.”

Beware Internal Conflicts

In light of this policy, corporate counsel confronting the need to conduct an internal investigation or respond to a government inquiry must be particularly cognizant of potential conflicts within the company. For example, the new policy underscores the importance of involving independent counsel, not in-house counsel, to conduct internal investigations. Moreover, individuals within the company whose potential exposure warrants their own counsel should be permitted to engage counsel separate from that of the company. Failure to successfully navigate the potential conflicts at the outset can lead to problems downstream for the company, not only for the individuals but also for corporate counsel who, absent the implementation of proper steps, may be perceived as not representing their client – the company — but rather the executives and employees of the company.

For individual officers and directors of a company (including corporate counsel who might be swept up in an investigation), the Yates Memo is quite sobering. The number of cases brought against individual defendants has risen significantly in recent years. For example, on a year-to-year basis from 2013 through 2015 the SEC has been steadily pursuing an increasing number of claims against public company officers and directors. The Yates Memo reflects a similar effort by the Justice Department, which will undoubtedly produce a corresponding increase in the number of individuals subject to criminal prosecutions. Furthermore, the Justice Department brings or coordinates claims on behalf of the federal government in a wide variety of civil matters (such as antitrust cases and those brought under the False Claims Act). The Yates Memo instructs the Department’s civil lawyers to focus increasingly on individuals, even where those individuals might not have the financial ability to pay a judgment. All of this makes clear that federal law enforcement is expressly seeking to “send a message” of accountability and deterrence to those who work in the private sector.

Corporate officers face an increasingly complex set of everyday challenges to remain compliant with the laws and regulations that govern today’s marketplace, whether when engaging in business overseas under the umbrella of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, seeking payment from the government for goods and services, reporting test results to the FDA, or participating in any other business activity that is subject to government scrutiny. When questions are raised about potential violations, whether through an internal tip or an outside inquiry, they must be taken seriously. Individual officers and employees should work with corporate counsel to assist the company in such cases, but those individuals (including corporate counsel themselves) should also take prudent steps to ensure that their own interests will be protected by, for example, engaging their own separate counsel in appropriate circumstances.

A Proactive Approach

The Yates Memo reflects that companies must evaluate what measures to have in place to protect the company and its directors, officers, and employees. A proactive approach often produces the best antidote. Companies should implement robust and properly tailored ethics and compliance programs and adequately document management’s efforts to set an appropriate “tone at the top.”

Companies should also evaluate the amount and quality of insurance available to reduce the burden of internal and external investigations as well as any resulting litigation. For example, sufficient directors’ and officers’ liability insurance may be needed to pay for the increased costs of the individuals’ separate counsel. Furthermore, companies should work with their insurance professionals to clarify relevant policy provisions, such as the trigger for coverage under such insurance (e.g., will insurance cover only “formal” proceedings?). Individuals should ensure that the company’s indemnity obligations are clear and properly formalized, and also make sure that the company provides or makes available adequate insurance that would cover them for non-indemnifiable claims.

In conclusion, it would be a mistake to interpret the Yates Memo as nothing more than a public relations effort in response to criticism that the government did not effectively pursue individuals who were responsible for the 2007 financial crisis. Though the Justice Department is intent on changing public perception, noting that one purpose of these new policies is to “promote the public’s confidence in our justice system,” the Yates Memo also makes clear that the Department will be taking concrete steps to implement and energize its “focus on individuals.” Notably, the Yates Memo directs that formal changes will be made to the Justice Department’s written policies and manuals to reflect the six points articulated in the memo. It also states that the Department will conduct formal training sessions for its attorneys to help “turn these policies into everyday practice.” In sum, the Yates Memo constitutes nothing less than a grave warning to companies and especially to the individuals who serve them.

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Coast Magazine
October 2015

Greenberg Gross LLP ranks among the elite law firms in California, regularly called upon by large companies, senior executives and even top law firms to handle their most significant legal battles. The firm has triumphed equally in pursuing and defending high-stakes business cases, scoring multimillion-dollar verdicts on the one hand, while also defeating company-endangering lawsuits on the other.

Alan Greenberg, the firm’s managing partner, explained: “Wayne Gross and I left Big Law to form a completely new firm because we no longer wanted to limit ourselves to helping only those that Big Law defends. We wanted to pursue justice for those clients in need of the very best legal talent, whether on the plaintiff or defense side.”

It is fitting that the creation of this top trial firm was sparked by a trial.  In 2011, founding partners Greenberg and Gross, then both litigation shareholders in one of the largest law firms in the country, made national headlines for winning a $50 million jury verdict in a partnership dispute regarding the world famous Hollywood Palladium and other iconic properties.  The verdict was remarkable not only for its size, but also because Greenberg and Gross obtained punitive damages—$30 million—on a cross-complaint for defendants.  “We were delighted to turn the tables on a plaintiff who victimized and unfairly sued our clients,” Gross said.

In forming Greenberg Gross, the founding partners set out to create a firm whose lawyers would pursue justice with the same skill, determination and imagination for all clients.  “We are extremely selective in our hiring because we know our team is vital to our success,” explained Greenberg. The firm’s lawyers come from top law schools, such as Yale and the University of Chicago, and often possess experience reflecting a desire to perform trial work at the highest level, such as federal judicial clerkships and litigation positions at top national law firms.

This commitment to excellence has enabled the firm to secure blue-chip clients for extremely high-stakes matters, including AIG, the New York-based insurance giant, Cavotec, a Switzerland-based global engineering firm, Frontline Corporate Services, a London-based manager of billions in private and publicly held assets, and important local clients, including the Automobile Club of Southern California and Goodwill of Orange County.

The firm also represents numerous high-level executives in high-stakes matters, including a former in-house lawyer of Broadcom. Last year, the firm won a seven-figure verdict for a former chief operating officer who had sued a chain of dialysis centers for defrauding him out of his share of the $43 million sale of the centers. This year, the firm, representing a company that had been sued by a former officer, not only defeated the lawsuit but won millions—including punitive damages—against the officer, once again enabling a client unfairly sued to turn the tables.

With its string of victories, the firm is listed in “Best Law Firms” by U.S. News Media Group.  Partners routinely are selected by their peers as SuperLawyers and “The BestLawyers in America.”  ”While we have no interest in becoming Big Law,” Greenberg said, “we produce big results for those who need us.”

View the Article in Coast Magazine (PDF)

LA Daily Journal
by Matthew Blake
September 10, 2015

A closely watched gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed against Broadcom Corp. will stay in the public eye after a federal judge on Tuesday denied the company’s motion to compel arbitration.

U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford ruled that a predispute arbitration agreement Jennifer Davies signed when she was the Irvine-based semiconductor giant’s in-house labor and employment attorney only covered disputes arising from Davies’ stock issuances, and does not encompass the claims Davies made in her lawsuit. Davies v. Broadcom Corp., CVlS-00928 (C.D. Cal., filed June 11, 2015).

Guilford wrote that Davies’ allegations of “unequal salaries, unequal job titles, overly demeaning statements, and, atone point, that female employees were forced to walk a runway for males employees” bear limited relation to the stock disputes discussed in the arbitration contract.

The judge did pare down Davies’ underlying complaint, dismissing the plaintiff’s claim that Broadcom violated the Dodd-Frank Act. And in another victory for Broadcom, Guilford kept redacted for now information Davies obtained in an internal investigation that lead to the alleged retaliation.

Davies’ allegation of a glass ceiling and boorish male behavior at a major technology company follows similar litigation by Ellen Pao against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and pending gender bias cases against Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

Davies’ attorney Wayne R. Gross of Greenberg Gross LLP said on Wednesday that his client seeks justice “for not just herself but for all women similarly discriminated against in the workplace, including the high-tech industry.”

Lynne C. Hermle, who represented Kleiner Perkins in the Pao case, is counsel for Broadcom and has been here before: The Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP lawyer also failed in a motion to bring Pao’s complaint before an arbitrator, before steering Kleiner Perkins to victory in a much-publicized jury trial.

Reached on Wednesday, HermIe referred to a statement from Broadcom, which said in part that Davies never filed an internal complaint despite “being familiar with the multiple formal avenues Broadcom provides for complaining internally about discrimination or retaliation.”

Davies alleges gender played a significant role in Broadcom never naming her a vice president, despite her apparent job qualifications and sterling performance reviews since being hired in 2006.

Moreover, the company moved Davies to a position supporting Broadcom’s Mobile Platform Services group, selling it as a way to obtain her coveted vice president position, only to dismiss her after mass layoffs at Mobile Platform Services.

The company reportedly let go of Davies after she blew the whistle on a Broadcom employee for reasons redacted in the public complaint.

Broadcom has responded that Davies was part of a larger purge of their platform services group. Davies said her dismissal is emblematic of a company that has an 84 percent male workforce.

An intriguing sub-topic in Davies is plaintiff’s right to assert a Securities and Exchange Commission whistle blower protection claim per the six-year-old Dodd-Frank act.  While acknowledging courts are so far split on the issue, Guilford concluded Davies could not bring a complaint under Dodd-Frank because she never reported any violation to the SEC.

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COSTA MESA (August 18, 2015) — Three partners with litigation boutique Greenberg Gross LLP — founders Alan A. Greenbergand Wayne R. Gross and new partner Michael I. Katz — have been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© 2016.  Greenberg was selected for his work in Commercial Litigation, Gross in the practice area of White-Collar Criminal Defense and Katz for Intellectual Property Litigation.

“We are honored to be selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers again,” Greenberg said.  “That our peers deem us to be among the best at what we do is extremely gratifying.”

With an impressive client list of public companies, prominent law firms, nonprofit organizations and high-level executives, the rapidly growing Orange County litigation firm also is ranked in the 2015 edition of “Best Law Firms” by U.S. News Media Group in the practice areas of Commercial Litigation and White-Collar defense.

In the two years since its April 2013 founding, Greenberg & Gross LLP has won many victories.  Among them are a $3 million verdict on a cross-complaint for a company sued by its former CEO, another seven-figure jury verdict for a client defrauded out of his share of the $43 million sale of a chain of dialysis centers, dismissals of class actions involving employment and an allegedly defective product, a defense jury verdict for a company sued for alleged fraud and breach of contract, and a defense verdict in a bench trial of a securities fraud case.

Prior to forming their law firm, founding partners Alan Greenberg and Wayne Gross grabbed national headlines for winning a $50 million jury verdict in a partnership dispute regarding iconic Hollywood properties, including the world-famous Hollywood Palladium.

The pair have been included in The Best Lawyers in America several times before.  The 2016 edition marks Greenberg’s fourth appearance in the select listing and Gross’s sixth.

Greenberg Gross LLP is headquartered on the 17th floor of the Center Tower building in Costa Mesa.  Since its formation, the firm has grown to 13 lawyers, with two more joining in September, all representing both plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes business cases.

Best Lawyers® is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession.  Attorneys are listed solely on the basis of peer nominations and confidential surveys of leading attorneys about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same region and practice areas.  Lawyers are not allowed to pay a fee to be listed.  For the 2016 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, 6.7 million votes were cast and analyzed.

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For additional information, please visit www.GGTrialLaw.com, or contact Alan A. Greenberg: (949) 383-2810 /AGreenberg@GGTrialLaw.com.

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Press Release from Cavotec SA
June 22, 2015

The Board of Directors of Cavotec SA (“Cavotec” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that following a seven-week courtroom trial in California between Cavotec and Michael Colaco, a 12-person jury, on June 18 and 19 (PSDT), issued a verdict in favor of Cavotec, the Chairman of its Board of Directors, and the CEO.  The jury rejected Colaco’s claim in his lawsuit that Cavotec, the Chairman and the CEO owed him USD 3.8 million pursuant to agreements that were allegedly breached.  The jury instead determined that Colaco breached his fiduciary duties to Cavotec with malice, oppression and fraud, and, that, as a result, must pay compensatory and punitive damages totaling USD 3.3 million to Cavotec subsidiary, Cavotec INET US Inc. (“Cavotec INET”).  Accordingly, the verdict effectively amounted to a victory for Cavotec in the amount of USD 7.1 million.  Moreover, the verdict entitles Cavotec to file a motion with the Court to obtain reimbursement from Colaco of the Company’s attorneys’ fees and costs.

As previously reported, Cavotec has been engaged in a lawsuit in the U.S. that was filed in 2012 against the Company and its Chairman and CEO.  The lawsuit was initiated by Michael Colaco, the former owner of INET Airport Systems, following his suspension and dismissal as Managing Director of Cavotec INET and as a member of the Company’s Executive Management Committee. The Company filed several counter-claims against Mr. Colaco, his former company, and others, including claims for breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of funds, and breach of contract.

“Throughout the proceedings, Cavotec vigorously defended itself against Mr. Colaco and at the same time actively pursued its claims against him and his accomplices,” says Cavotec founder and Chairman, Stefan Widegren.  ”The dedication shown by our management has been exemplary and I’m very pleased that we can now put this matter to rest,” he continued.

“This positive outcome follows a long period of perseverance by many within Cavotec and we arepleased that we can now fully focus on moving forward with our Cavotec INET operations,” says Ottonel Popesco, Cavotec CEO.

The verdict remains subject to a potential appeal.

Throughout the litigation process, Cavotec SA and its Chairman and CEO were represented by counsel from Greenberg Gross LLP.

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Orange County Business Journal
by Jane Yu
June 11, 2015

Business litigators Michael Katz and Adrianne Marshack have joined trial law firm Greenberg Gross LLP in Costa Mesa.

Katz for the past three years has headed Irvine-based Katz Yoon LLP, a boutique litigation firm he cofounded in 2012.

He previously was a partner in the Irvine and Los Angeles offices of Morrison & Foerster. His other stints include working as a law clerk to the Honorable Barbara Crabb, former chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

Marshack also was a partner at Katz Yoon. She previously worked at Morrison & Foerster and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP.

Katz Yoon’s practice has closed. Melissa Yoon, the other founding partner alongside Katz, left the firm in March to serve as general counsel of Aliso Viejo-based Ambry Genetics Corp., a provider of clinical genetic diagnostics.

Greenberg Gross was founded in 2013 by Wayne Gross, former federal prosecutor and Orange County Bar Association president, and Alan Greenberg, a trial lawyer who specializes in high-stakes commercial cases with a focus on finance, real estate and business transactions.

Gross and Greenberg worked together at Greenberg Traurig LLP before starting their own firm.

Greenberg Gross’ recent hires include Evan Borges, former counsel at Irell & Manella LLP, and Michael McMahon, a former associate at Irell.

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