Plaintiff-Side Services

We represented Shareholder Representative Services (SRS) in its role as representative of the former shareholders of FerroKin Biosciences in a post-merger dispute with Shire Pharmaceuticals, which had refused to make a $45 million milestone payment related to the development of an experimental iron chelation drug. After a four-day bench trial, the Delaware Chancery Court entered judgment in favor of SRS, ruling in a 77-page opinion that the former FerroKin shareholders were entitled to the overdue $45 million milestone, as well as five years of interest on the payment and their attorneys’ fees and costs, which totaled more than $80 million. The judgment of the Court of Chancery was unanimously affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court.

For more than a decade, we have represented the San Diego County Water Authority in litigation against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), the regional water wholesaler for most of Southern California. We have led them through three separate trials, and represented them in three separate appeals, resulting in more than $100 million in recovered damages, interest and attorneys’ fees, plus legal victories that have provided more than $1 billion in long-term benefit to the Water Authority.

We represented Oregon State University in a lawsuit against the Pac-12 Conference to determine control of the Pac-12, in the wake of the announced departures of 10 conference members. We achieved a temporary restraining order that prevented the 10 departing conference members from wrongfully seizing control of the Pac-12 and ultimately negotiated a settlement.

We represented Genentech as the victim of a massive trade secret theft by its former scientists and founders of JHL Biotech, which was developing biosimilar versions of Genentech’s cancer medicines. The Keker team reported the theft to the DOJ and FBI and cooperated with the government’s investigation, which led to the indictment, guilty pleas, and prison time for JHL’s founders and top executives. On the civil side, the team won a preliminary injunction forbidding JHL from commercializing its products. This broad injunction, which rested on a finding that Genentech had a likelihood of success on its trade secret misappropriation claims, led to a settlement with JHL, in which JHL agreed to abandon development of all four of its biosimilars of Genentech’s products, destroy all related cell lines, stipulate to a permanent injunction, fully cooperate with Genentech’s investigation, and reimburse Genentech for its legal fees.

We represented Instacart in a copyright lawsuit against Cornershop, a grocery-delivery company Uber purchased for $500 million. Cornershop launched its U.S. operations in Texas and Florida to compete with Instacart, using Instacart’s copyrighted images, which Cornershop scraped from Instacart’s website. After Instacart filed a complaint alleging claims under the Copyright Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, The Texas Harmful Access to Computers Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Cornershop stipulated to a comprehensive permanent injunction under which the company agreed not to scrape, display, publish, reproduce, or distribute any copies or derivatives of any of Instacart’s copyrighted images.

We represented software innovator SRS Acquiom in a trade-secrets misappropriation case against PNC Bank and two former SRS employees, alleging that the employees improperly retained SRS confidential information and used it, with PNC, to unfairly compete against SRS for online M&A payments-and-escrow business.

We represented former Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick in a wrongful termination and retaliation lawsuit following her termination by the City of Oakland. For nearly three years, Chief Kirkpatrick raised a series of alarms about misconduct by the Oakland Police Commission. Following a two-week trial, a San Francisco federal jury found that Chief Kirkpatrick was wrongfully terminated for blowing the whistle on the Police Commission’s misconduct.

We represented two former company executives in a securities fraud action arising out of a tender offer. We obtained a favorable settlement before depositions began.

We represented Calithera Biosciences, an early-stage drug development company, in a milestone dispute arising out of a collaboration agreement. We obtained a favorable settlement before depositions began.

We represented Varian, a world leader in radiotherapy medical devices for the treatment of cancer, in prosecuting claims against one of its competitors for the infringement of two patents covering radiation delivery technology.

On behalf of fortune 250 company NRG Energy, we brought suit against solar energy company SunPower for breach of contract and declaratory relief. The case stems from a construction and financing arrangement under which the parties developed a photovoltaic solar power plant, California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR), in San Luis Obispo County, California. CVSR remains one of the world’s largest utility-scale solar facilities and provides power to an estimated 100,000 California homes. NRG asserts that it has paid SunPower more than $1.3 Billion over the course of developing CVSR. In contrast, SunPower has refused to pay NRG based on its contractual indemnification obligations.

We represented SanDisk in a massive trade secret misappropriation and corporate espionage case. SanDisk, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, sued competitor SK Hynix for misappropriating approximately ten gigabytes of highly confidential trade secret information and using that information over the course of six years to revamp Hynix’s technology and unfairly compete with SanDisk. We obtained a sweeping preliminary injunction that barred Hynix from any further use or disclosure of stolen SanDisk information, and fought back efforts to dismiss the case, to send it to arbitration, to transfer it overseas, and to remove it from the court that granted the preliminary injunction. Following a series of courtroom victories for our client, the parties reached a confidential settlement and entered into a product supply agreement.

We secured an injunction, restitution and settlement monies totaling $460 million for our client Cadence Design Systems, Inc. in a trade secret misappropriation suit against Avant! and its founders. After successfully handling the civil matter, the largest trade secret litigation to date, we referred the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney which secured criminal convictions of the company and four executives.

We represented Netgear, a preeminent provider of computer networking products, in pursuing false advertising and unfair competition claims against a competitor for violating FCC regulations in the sale of Wi-Fi 6E routers.