Adam H. Offenhartz is a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.  He is a member of the firms' Litigation Department and focuses on insurance and reinsurance disputes as well as commercial litigation with an emphasis on corporate control contests. In the insurance and reinsurance area, he has litigated and arbitrated cases involving contract formation, coverage issues, rescission and fraud claims and allocation issues.  Mr. Offenhartz has handled arbitrations covering a variety of matters in London, Geneva, Paris, São Paulo and New York.  He has also handled and tried jury and non-jury cases involving corporate control contests, mergers and acquisition battles, bank fraud cases, real estate valuation and earn-out disputes, restrictive covenants in the employment context, copyright infringement and other matters.  He regularly represents plaintiffs/claimants for whom he has recovered substantial sums or achieved significant injunctive relief.

Mr. Offenhartz was recently named as a leading litigator in the 2010 edition of Benchmark Litigation.

Mr. Offenhartz joined Gibson Dunn in 1989 after earning his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School. He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he received a degree in American History and Literature.

Representative Arbitration Matters

• Lead litigator on behalf of General Growth Properties, Inc. ("GGP") in a multi-day arbitration against the heirs to the Howard Hughes estate.  After the liability phase of the hearing, the arbitration panel ruled in favor of GGP on six of seven of the heirs' claims, and, with respect to the seventh claim, found a technical breach awarding $1 in damages.
• Lead litigator on behalf of Texaco (now Chevron) in an international arbitration before a United Nations arbitration panel that sat in Geneva, London and Washington, DC that resulted in a $550 million award arising from damage to oil facilities during the first Gulf War.  Chevron obtained the largest award granted to any U.S. corporate claimant.  The award has been fully satisfied.
• Lead litigator in a reinsurance arbitration on behalf of AIG member company arising out of an auto warranty program which resulted in a $90 million recovery for AIG.
• Represented various AIG member companies in a series of reinsurance arbitrations with an Australian reinsurer resulting in a more than $18 million recovery for AIG.
• Have handled UNCITRAL arbitrations in Brazil and NY; ICC arbitrations in Toronto and Paris; and have supervised litigation and investigations in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Thailand.

Representative Corporate Control Matters

• Lead litigator for iBasis Inc. (“iBasis”) in connection with an all-cash, all-shares tender offer made by its majority shareholder Koninklijke KPN N.V. (“KPN”) for all of the outstanding shares of iBasis.  Gibson Dunn litigated the case through trial, but before the Delaware Chancery Court issued a ruling, the case settled after KPN agreed to increase its tender offer price to $3.00 per share.  The offer price represented a 130.8% premium for shareholders over the closing price of iBasis shares on the last trading day prior to the announcement of KPN’s tender offer, and nearly a 100% increase from KPN's initial offer price of $1.55 per share.
• Lead litigator on behalf of Delcath Systems in successful defense of consent solicitation by an activist shareholder to replace the entire board.  Despite receiving sufficient shareholder votes, the activist investor was prevented from replacing the board with his nominees because of the various restraining orders and the preliminary injunction we won in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
• Lead litigator on behalf of Parlux Fragrance in successful defense of consent solicitation by an activist shareholder to replace the entire board.  After achieving, in effect, a stay on the consent solicitation following our emergency application for relief on both antitrust and securities grounds in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and following pitched discovery, Parlux resolved the battle without giving control to the insurgents. 
• Lead securities litigator on behalf of Atlantic Coast Airlines in successfully preventing an unsolicited takeover by Mesa Airlines.  We initiated litigation in the DC District Court seeking to enjoin the consent solicitation and tender offer.  Mesa brought claims against Atlantic Coast in Delaware Chancery Court.  Following extended document and deposition discovery, we amended our federal complaint to include antitrust claims.  Following even further expedited discovery and a multi-day evidentiary hearing, the Court enjoined Mesa's bid.
• Lead litigator on behalf of Maxwell Shoe in defending against a consent solicitation and tender offer from Jones Apparel.  We initiated a securities action in federal court in Boston.  Jones brought claims against Maxwell Shoe in Delaware Chancery Court.  Following discovery, we were able to negotiate a greatly improved offer for Maxwell Shoe.
• Lead litigator on behalf of ArvinMeritor for its unsolicited bid for Dana.  We filed actions against Dana in federal court in the Western District of Virginia and in state court in Buena Vista, Virginia.  We also defended an action brought by Dana in state court in Ohio.  Due to changing market conditions, ArvinMeritor decided not to proceed with its bid.
• Regularly provide advice to companies, special board committees and activist shareholders on corporate control, mergers and acquisitions and litigation related matters.  Representative clients include:  General Growth Properties, The Rouse Company (now part of General Growth), Primedia, EDS, Charter, TNS, Nabi Biopharmaceuticals and various hedge funds.

Additional Representative Matters

• Lead litigator during a three-week jury trial on copyright infringement and Lanham Act claims.  Case resolved favorably for the client immediately before jury deliberations.
• Represented four plaintiff European banks in a bank fraud and conversion case in the Southern District of New York related to oil trade finance which has resulted in over $70 million in recovery.