Meaningful Work

Orrick lawyers handle innovative transactions and high-stakes litigation throughout North America, Europe and Asia. We act for the world's leading global companies and financial institutions, as well as tomorrow's innovators, and are particularly well-known for our work in the technology, renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services and consumer and retail sectors. When you begin your career with us as a summer associate, you will gain experience in a broad spectrum of work, including debt and equity capital markets; domestic and cross-border M&A; private equity and venture capital; sophisticated finance; and litigation and intellectual property. As a first-year associate, you will be matched with a transactional or litigation practice.

Below are some recent highlights of the suits and deals on which we work and the results we achieve for our clients.

Innovative Transactions

One-half of our practice involves transactional matters, with a healthy balance of domestic and international work.

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• The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been the most active IPO market in the world for the past two years, and Orrick has been one of the dominant law firms in this market. Over the past 12 months, no firm in the world has advised more companies on HKSE IPOs than Orrick. We have helped take public dozens of Chinese companies in sectors ranging from aluminum to mining to clothing manufacturing—acting for both issuers and underwriters. We also advised on the first delisting of a Chinese company on the London Stock Exchange and relisting in Hong Kong.
• In addition, we have represented international companies in tapping the U.S. capital markets. Examples include advising Taiwan-based SemiLEDs Corp., a manufacturer of LED chips, in its IPO on NASDAQ; Sequans, the fabless supplier of chips for 4G communications, with its IPO on NASDAQ, which was the first U.S. IPO of a French company in a decade; and SodaStream, the Israeli manufacturer of home beverage carbonation systems, in its IPO on NASDAQ and $300 million follow-on offering.
• In renewable energy, Orrick helped Eurus Energy and NRG Solar to develop the Avenal solar project—California's largest photovoltaic solar generating facility and the first utility-scale solar power project in the United States to be project financed. The project was named "Solar Deal of the Year" for 2010 by Euromoney. We advised Energy Investors Funds, one of the nation's most active private equity firms dedicated to the independent power industry, in a project finance loan to Solar Power Partners for a portfolio of 19 solar energy facilities in California. In addition, we assisted the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia in the development, construction and financing of the nation's first nuclear power plant facility in 30 years—a multibillion dollar project that was named "All Star Deal of 2011" by Smith's Research & Gradings.
• On the infrastructure side, Orrick is at the forefront of the global privatization trend. Our infrastructure group has advised on every major U.S. transportation PPP transaction in the past eight years. This includes representing Fluor Corp and Marquarie, winners of the concession to construct, finance and operate the Denver commuter rail, which is known as the Denver Eagle P3. This is the first U.S. rail PPP project to reach financial close and was awarded "Infrastructure and Project Finance Deal of the Year" for 2011 by The Banker. Orrick also assisted in a major PPP contract involving the construction of the new French Ministry of Defense site, known as the "French Pentagon," which unites the operational centers of the French Army, Air Force and Marines on a single site in Paris.
• In an example of increasing outbound investment by Chinese businesses, we represented shipping company COSCO Pacific in negotiating a $6.6 billion concession agreement to develop and operate two piers at the port of Piraeus in Greece. This transaction was named "M&A Deal of the Year" by Asian-Counsel. In another port deal, we helped Ports America Chesapeake close on a 50-year lease and concession agreement for the Seagirt Marine Terminal in a transaction that is projected to generate more than $1.3 billion in revenue for the State of Maryland. This project was awarded "North American Logistics Deal of the Year" for 2010 by Euromoney.
• Orrick's Emerging Companies Group, which is based in Silicon Valley and extends to virtually all of our offices worldwide, acts for more than 800 emerging growth companies, as well as the venture capital and private equity firms that finance them. Dow Jones named Orrick among the 10 most active firms for VC deals in 2010, and we helped finance nine of The Momentum Index's "Top 20 Technology Companies." Examples include advising Kleiner Perkins on its investment in Twitter and helping Fisker Automotive, a creator of high-end, environmentally sustainable sports cars, obtain both venture financing and U.S. Department of Energy-backed loans.
• As examples of our M&A work in the emerging technology sector, we represented Manymoon, the developer of a leading social productivity and collaboration platform, and Heroku, a platform-as-a-service provider, in their acquisitions by Salesforce.com. We also represented Perfect World, a leading Nasdaq-listed online game developer and operator in China, in its acquisition of the California-based developer responsible for City of Heroes, Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
• In cross-border M&A work, we represented France's Areva Transmission & Distribution in its $3.2 billion sale to Schneider Electric and Alstom. Our M&A teams advised CoorsTek on the acquisition of the advanced ceramics business of France's Saint-Gobain, making it the world's largest technical ceramics manufacturer. We also assisted France's Cube Infrastructure Fund and the Italian state-owned railway Ferrovie dello Stato on the purchase of Arriva—one of Europe's largest private operators of regional trains and bus passenger transport services.
• Orrick has long been the dominant law firm in the U.S. municipal markets, ranking No. 1 as bond counsel for the past decade. As general obligation bond counsel to the State of California, we have worked on public offerings of more than $89 billion since 2006. This has included raising more than $10 billion to fund infrastructure projects as part of the state's response to the financial crisis—work that was cited by The Financial Times in naming Orrick as one of the "Most Innovative US Law Firms." We also acted as bond counsel on a $1 billion issuance for New York State under the Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement—a program under which the firm has acted in 51 deals since 1999, raising over $34 billion, including the first, the latest and the largest of the transactions.
• Our finance team represented the FDIC in more than half of the $4 billion in structured notes it has issued—a set of transactions recognized by The Banker as the "Structured Finance Deal of the Year."
• Our real estate team represents some of the most active international real estate private equity funds, developers and financial institutions, including Westbrook Partners, RREEF, Starwood Capital and Morgan Stanley, in joint ventures, acquisitions, dispositions, financings and other matters related to large scale equity and debt real estate projects in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, China and other markets. Notable recent transactions include the two largest real estate transactions in Germany of 2011, including the sale of Europe’s largest shopping and leisure center; a series of equity and debt transactions involving landmark hotels, including the Miami and San Francisco Four Seasons, the Boston Ritz Carlton and the San Francisco Westin; and the acquisition and financing by an institutional investor of the nine-building, 57-acre former Sun Microsystems campus, which will now serve as Facebook’s principal office complex.
• Our bankruptcy team recently advised on the restructuring of the privatization of SR 125 in California and represented the lenders in Chemtura Corporation's successful emergence from bankruptcy. In addition, an Orrick bankruptcy partner was named "Dealmaker of the Year" by The American Lawyer in recognition of our innovative work on behalf of the City of Vallejo, the largest California city to seek Chapter 9 relief.
  

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Litigation: An Extraordinary Record

Orrick is one of the leading dispute resolution law firms, with more than 500 litigators worldwide. While we offer specialized expertise in a wide range of areas—including intellectual property, antitrust, securities, Supreme Court and appellate, commercial, product liability, white collar, employment, insurance and arbitration—we are at our core trial lawyers. Below is a sampling of the results we have achieved for our clients in the past year.

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• In the battle over the billion-dollar Bratz doll franchise, Orrick's trial team achieved one of the biggest reversals in litigation history when a federal jury in California recently rejected all of Mattel's claims to rights to the franchise. This resulted in a $309 million judgment in favor of the creator of the Bratz doll, our client MGA Entertainment. Our appellate team played an instrumental role in this victory by convincing the Ninth Circuit to throw out a $100 million jury award in favor of Mattel, as well as a post-trial injunction ruling that had awarded the Bratz brand to Mattel.
• In litigation that picked up where the film "The Social Network" left off, the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of our client Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg in the dispute with the Winklevoss twins over the ownership of the site. The court affirmed that the settlement agreement between the parties was valid and enforceable, noting that the agreement released Facebook from all claims, and upheld the lower court ruling that Orrick had successfully argued.
• Working with U.S. and international law enforcement, Orrick developed novel strategies to take down two of the world's largest botnets—the massive cyber criminal networks that are responsible for most of the world's spam. On behalf of Microsoft, Orrick orchestrated an extraordinary global effort through judicial and extrajudicial means. These successful efforts introduced new tactics for combating one of the most potent technologies in the toolbox of cybercriminals.
• In another intellectual property case, the Federal Circuit recently affirmed the International Trade Commission's finding that Orrick clients Acer, Nanya and Powerchip Technology did not infringe Tessera's patents related to DRAM chip packaging. Our IP team put an end to Tessera's 5–0 record in bringing such claims—in part by drawing on our technical knowledge to discredit its computer model analysis. The above two victories were cited by Law360 in naming Orrick "IP Law Firm of the Year" for 2010.
• In Fox v. Vice, lower courts had levied a draconian attorneys' fees award against a civil rights plaintiff under a standard that, if affirmed, would have deterred plaintiffs from bringing creative new claims enforcing a wide variety of federal rights. Orrick, on a pro bono basis, persuaded a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the award and adopt a standard that furnished plaintiffs much more robust protection.
• The Second Circuit ruled for our client UBS in a case brought by a putative class of Genesco Inc. shareholders claiming that UBS tortiously interfered with the merger between Finish Line and Genesco. The action sought more than $800 million in damages, representing the merger premium that Genesco shareholders allegedly lost as a result of the termination of the merger.
• In a case that was closely watched by the brokerage industry, our employment team obtained a summary judgment in a putative class action challenging Morgan Stanley's employee trading policy. The Los Angeles Federal District Court concluded that federal securities laws, which require brokerages to monitor employees' trading, preempt a California state law prohibiting employer patronage.
• On behalf of Norwegian-based telecoms giant Telenor, Orrick brought an end to six years of litigation, obtaining a settlement that enables Telenor to operate in Russia and the Ukraine through a merger of mobile assets valued at more than $23 billion. This outcome was the culmination of numerous proceedings, including four international arbitrations and multiple actions before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as in the courts of the Russian Federation.
• Likewise, Orrick brought a conclusion to an 11-year dispute for French international media conglomerate Vivendi, enabling it to successfully exit its telecoms investments in Poland. The case involved litigation and arbitration proceedings in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.
• Our Paris team secured an important victory for the French oil company Total, convincing the French Supreme Court to overturn the French Competition Authority's fine against our client (as well as other major oil companies) in connection with alleged anticompetitive practices in the jet fuel market. This case is the first instance within the European Competition Network of cooperation among two national competition authorities.
• In a case that became a symbol of the search for culpability for the mortgage crisis, Orrick defended David Sambol, former president of Countrywide Financial Corporation, against allegations of securities fraud brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the SEC built its case for more than two years and publicly trumpeted the charges at the time it filed its complaint, it ultimately agreed to settle the case with each of the defendants four days before the commencement of trial. Our client's settlement was particularly favorable.
• In the first antitrust case brought in the People's Republic of China, Orrick successfully argued that Baidu, the largest Chinese Internet search engine company, did not violate the country's new antitrust regulations with its keyword advertising service. The case has become the standard for all antitrust cases in China.
• A high-profile dispute handled by Orrick in Hong Kong challenged the independence of the Hong Kong judiciary and raised significant questions relating to sovereign immunity. The key issue was whether the "restrictive" doctrine (as embraced by the United Kingdom and the United States) or the "absolute" doctrine (as embraced by the PRC) applies in post-colonial Hong Kong. Hong Kong's highest court ruled in favor of Orrick's client, the Democratic Republic of Congo, applying the policy of absolute immunity.
• In another pro bono matter, an Orrick team successfully represented a Peruvian native in the first criminal human trafficking case brought to trial in the Northern District of California. A federal judge granted our client's motion for more than $600,000 in damages and awarded back wages based on an hourly rate of $23. This victory establishes important precedent in determining the value of domestic workers and trafficking victims' services.

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