Attorneys

After 90 minutes of deliberation, a Southern District of New York jury awarded Morvillo Abramowitz client, Donald Drapkin, a judgment in excess of $16 million in two civil actions, Drapkin v. Mafco Consolidated Group LLC, No. 09 Civ. 4513 (SDNY) and MacAndrews & Forbes LLC v. Drapkin, No. 09 Civ. 1285.  For 20 years, Mr. Drapkin served as Vice Chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes, a company wholly owned by its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ronald O. Perelman. Mr. Drapkin brought a breach-of-contract lawsuit against his former employer in 2009, when the company ceased to honor payment obligations it had to Mr. Drapkin under his severance agreement and a stock purchase agreement.  In countersuit, MacAndrews & Forbes alleged that Mr. Drapkin had materially breached 5 provisions of his severance agreement.  On Friday, January 27, 2012, the jury found that Mr. Drapkin had adhered to the terms of a 2007 separation agreement when he left MacAndrews & Forbes, Mr. Perelman’s holding company, and was owed $16 million from that agreement.   Together with attorneys at Hogan Lovells, Mr. Drapkin was represented by Elkan Abramowitz, Thomas Keane, Sid Kamaraju, Christopher Robbins, and Max Rodriguez.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-28/perelman-s-macandrews-forbes-loses-16-million-drapkin-verdict.html

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/perelman-loses-court-battle-over-16-million-suit/

Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, P.C. was recognized both as a National Leader in White-Collar Crime and as a Recommended Litigation Firm in New York by the 5th annual edition of Benchmark Litigation: The Definitive Guide to America's Leading Litigation Firms & Attorneys. In addition, Morvillo Abramowitz partners Elkan Abramowitz and Robert G. Morvillo were named National Litigation Stars in White-Collar Crime with the publication also naming Mr. Abramowitz, Mr. Morvillo and Robert J. Anello as Local Litigation Stars in New York.

Benchmark is the only publication on the market to focus exclusively on litigation in the U.S. The guide's results culminate a six-month research period during which researchers conduct extensive interviews with litigators and their clients.

For the eighth year in a row, Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, P.C., has been recognized by Chambers USA:  Americas Leading Lawyers for Business as a leading litigation firm. Chambers USA 2011 gave its highest ranking, Band 1, to the firm in Litigation: Specialist Firms in White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations (New York).

The firm was heralded as, "...an excellent litigation firm with a deep bench of attorneys."  Five of the firm's attorneys received individual recognition in Litigation:  White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, the highest number of individuals among all firms in this category.   The five attorneys who received individual recognition were Elkan Abramowitz, Robert Morvillo, Barry Bohrer, Lawrence Iason, and Robert Anello.  In addition, Robert Morvillo received individual recognition in Litigation:  Trial Lawyers (Nationwide).

Chambers USA is a product of Chambers & Partners, publishers of the world’s leading guides to the legal profession. To obtain their results, Chambers engages a team of 100 highly qualified full-time researchers, conducting thousands of interviews with lawyers and their clients worldwide every year.

After almost nine years of hard fought litigation, on October 28, 2010, the firm obtained a tremendous result fully vindicating its client Kenneth Lipper.  When a hedge fund managed by Mr. Lipper was dissolved in 2002 after it was revealed that the fund’s portfolio manager engaged in a mismarking fraud, Mr. Lipper was named in nearly 20 lawsuits and was accused of committing fraud, acting negligently, and breaching fiduciary duties.  After a 19 day arbitration hearing that concluded in January 2010, a FINRA arbitration panel totally rejected claims brought against Mr. Lipper by the fund’s liquidating trustee and concluded that Mr. Lipper acted appropriately in managing the fund.  In addition, the same FINRA arbitration panel awarded firm clients Mr. Lipper, Lipper & Company, L.P., and Lipper & Company, Inc. more than $15 million in damages, finding that the Trustee was contractually obligated to indemnify them for entirety of the legal fees and expenses they incurred in connection with their successful defense of the 20 actions and investigations arising after the fund’s dissolution in 2002.  On October 28, 2010, the Honorable Shirley Werner Kornreich of the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court, New York County issued a 21 page decision confirming the FINRA arbitration award.  The Panel’s decision and Justice Kornreich’s Order represents yet another affirmation of the firm’s long held position that Mr. Lipper acted properly and appropriately in managing Convertibles, that he was a victim of the portfolio manager’s underlying fraud, and that all of the lawsuits brought against him lacked any merit whatsoever.  The Morvillo Abramowitz attorneys representing the Lipper Parties at the FINRA arbitration and the New York state court proceedings included Elkan Abramowitz, Catherine M. Foti, Jeremy H. Temkin, Benjamin S. Fischer, David Austin, David J. Stankiewicz, and Scott Schirick.

On April 23, 2010, Morvillo Abramowitz Principal Elkan Abramowitz will participate in a panel discussion on “Centralization and Cooperation:  Is Strong Central Authority Necessary or Effective” as part of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University School of Law’s conference on "Allocating Prosecutorial Power:  How Prosecutors Compete, Cooperate and Clash."  Information regarding the panel is available here.