Steven K. Taylor

We represented Black Knight in a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission attempting to block Intercontinental Exchange’s acquisition of Black Knight as allegedly anticompetitive. Intercontinental Exchange (the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange) entered into an agreement to acquire Black Knight, which provides software, data and analytics to the real estate and housing finance markets, for $13.1 billion. Following certain divestiture agreements, we convinced the FTC to drop its suit and allow the merger to proceed.

We defended key individuals associated with the development of the Millennium Tower luxury condominiums at 301 Mission Street in San Francisco against multiple lawsuits filed by the Homeowner’s Association, private individual condo owners, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, and a bevy of contractors, subcontractors and vendors. Plaintiffs allege that the 58-story building was settling faster than expected, but the developer did not disclose that information to potential home buyers. The parties reached a confidential settlement.

We defended two private equity firms, Water Street Health Care Partners and Windpoint Partners, against a $250 million claim for accounting fraud related to the sale of a large physical therapy company. The plaintiff was a bankruptcy trust representing the interests of Court Square Capital Partners, the equity purchaser in the LBO-type acquisition, and its debt financers. KVP was hired as lead trial counsel to develop and lead the deposition strategy (approximately 40 depositions), lead expert discovery, and prepare the case for trial. After we obtained favorable pre-trial rulings that created significant risk for plaintiff’s damages claim and ensured the admissibility of critical favorable evidence, the case settled on the eve of trial.

As lead counsel for McGraw Hill and its Standard and Poor’s division, we defended our client from the government’s suit which sought at least $5 billion in penalties under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. The government accused S&P of fraud in its rating of hundreds of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) in the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. McGraw Hill ultimately settled with the government, and more than 20 states that made similar claims under state laws.

We defended a former Citigroup executive in one of the rare financial crisis cases to go to trial. Our client worked on the structuring desk at Citigroup and was charged with securities fraud in connection with Citigroup’s 2007 marketing of a $1 billion collateralized debt obligation (CDO) backed by assets tied to the housing market. After a two week trial in the Southern District of New York, a jury rejected the SEC’s case and found our client not liable on any of the SEC’s claims.

We defended MedeAnalytics, a leading provider of healthcare analytics, against allegations of employee poaching and related causes of action filed by its former business partner. We also filed and litigated a counterclaim for misappropriation of trade secrets. The case was settled on favorable terms prior to summary judgment.

We served as lead counsel for HTC, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of handheld devices, in its battle with Apple over smartphone technology. Apple first sued HTC in district court and before the International Trade Commission (ITC), claiming our client had infringed 20 patents related to various computer-related technologies, including user interfaces, operating systems, power management, and digital signal processing. The ITC hearing that went to decision resulted in a favorable ruling, and HTC obtained a settlement to become the first Android handset maker licensed by Apple.

We defended a leading Internet search engine in a high-stakes binding arbitration. The founders of a company acquired by our client alleged our client breached the merger agreement, and sought hundreds of millions in earn-out compensation. A three-judge panel found in favor of our client on all counts.

We represented the former CEO of a public company in a criminal investigation, a Securities and Exchange Commission suit, a derivative shareholder suit, a breach of contract suit by our client against his former company, and that company's counterclaim for hundreds of millions. All of these matters were related to the company's historical stock option granting practices. We resolved all of the matters against our client with net payments of more than $10 million to our client.

We represented limited partnership owners of the Oakland Raiders in a breach of fiduciary duty action against the team's general partner, Al Davis. The suit sought to confirm our client's partnership rights and prevent the diminishment of its partnership share. The case was settled before trial on favorable terms for our client.

We achieved an early resolution of numerous state and federal court actions for a venture fund company and one of its partners. Our clients faced trade secret misappropriation, copyright infringement, and breach of contract claims in both state court and in federal court. We were able to remove the state court action to federal court, and then secure an early settlement for our clients.

We represented the former chief financial officer of a software company against Securities and Exchange Commission allegations of securities fraud in the company’s revenue recognition practices. We secured a dismissal on the eve of trial.

In a landmark patent case before the International Trade Commission (ITC), we represented Broadcom, a leading semiconductor company, against a telecommunications company, various wireless network providers, and handset manufacturers. After a trial and the first live hearing before the full commission in 20 years, we obtained an order from the ITC preventing the infringing chips from being imported into the U.S.

We successfully defended the Alameda County District Attorney and the District Attorney's Office from accusations of gender discrimination. Working with top female attorneys in the D.A.’s office, we proved the plaintiff’s allegations were unfounded and secured summary judgment.

We defended Comcast in a nine-patent case involving high-speed Internet and digital TV services. Rembrandt originally filed the case in the Eastern District of Texas, but in conjunction with other co-defendants, we obtained multi-district consolidation and transfer to the District of Delaware. Based upon claim construction rulings, Rembrandt conceded non-infringement of eight of the nine patents, preserving only its right to appeal the claim construction as to the ninth. The Federal Circuit then upheld the claim construction on that last patent, resulting in non-infringement. We also helped Comcast secure an exceptional-case determination and a resulting award of over $10 million in fees and costs.