Gibson Dunn Chair and Managing Partner Barbara Becker reflected on the firm’s continued growth in an interview with The American Lawyer [PDF]. The publication noted rising demand across practice areas, industry groups, and geographies.
“Last year we celebrated our 135th anniversary as a firm, and it took us 121 years to reach $1 billion in revenue,” Barbara said. “Then it took nine years to reach $2 billion, four years to reach $3 billion, and two years to reach $4 billion, so that momentum in and of itself is pretty awesome.”
Following a public consultation, discussed in her previous article, the U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) enforcement framework is being fundamentally overhauled with major reforms being adopted, writes London associate Irene Polieri for Law360 [PDF].
With the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) framework as a reference, Irene looks in detail at the changes — including a new case assessment matrix with higher baseline penalty ranges, the reduced voluntary self-disclosure discount and OFSI’s aims to double maximum penalties — and discusses OFSI’s new approach prioritizing cases of the highest seriousness, supporting specific foreign policy objectives and exposing vulnerabilities in particular sectors.
Irene writes: “The era of OFSI as a passive responder to disclosed breaches is over, and a clearer sense of direction now informs the agency’s operations. While the changes bring OFSI into closer alignment with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — its U.S. counterpart and formal enforcement partner since 2022 — OFSI has made deliberate choices to diverge, and the two frameworks remain structurally distinct in ways that carry real consequences for exposure modelling and enforcement strategy.”
Partner Karin Portlock was interviewed by KTUL-TV about an amended complaint filed on April 10 in an ongoing federal lawsuit against Tulsa Public Schools. Gibson Dunn brought the case on behalf of the family of a special needs first-grade student who was assaulted in 2024 by a staff member who later pleaded guilty to felony child abuse. According to the amended complaint, the assault was one of several examples of school employees using improper force and violence against disabled students.
“What we’ve uncovered is that the mistreatment of special needs children in Tulsa Public Schools is endemic,” said Karin.
In an in-depth interview with The AmLaw Litigation Daily [PDF] (“Speed by Itself Is Not Enough: How Gibson Dunn’s Trey Cox Thinks AI Is Reshaping Litigation Strategy,” April 14, 2026), partner Trey Cox asserts that the main value of AI is not speed but rather what he refers to as “strategic compression”—the ability to get “to the point of decision-making faster.”
Trey explains that “In complex litigation, trial teams can spend days and weeks and months gathering documents, organizing facts, mapping the factual terrain, the legal standards and pressure-testing things.” With AI, he says, “we can compress those weeks and months into hours and days.”
Trey adds that this compression isn’t about locking into a theory earlier—it’s about testing it harder, which is what the best trial teams do. “You should use AI … to test the assumptions, to challenge the facts,” he said. “That’s the magic of what AI allows you to do.”
Trey is Co-Chair of the firm’s global Litigation Practice Group and Co-Partner in Charge of the Dallas office.
A Gibson Dunn team has achieved a significant victory on behalf of Vale S.A.—the world’s largest iron mining company—in a long-running multibillion-dollar securities litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
After pending for nearly two years, Vale’s motion to exclude Dr. Steven Feinstein’s expert damages model in its entirety was granted by Judge Eric Komitee—a pathbreaking ruling that will reverberate far beyond this case. The Court’s decision provides robust guidance on the proper damages methodology experts must employ in event-driven securities class actions involving realization of understated risks. For far too long, securities class action plaintiffs in these cases have sought to “supersize” damage amounts by hiring experts who assume maximum artificial inflation from day one of a class period and then label as “damages” every penny of market losses on alleged corrective disclosure dates. This decision should end that practice once and for all.
Led by Christopher Joralemon and David Kusnetz, the firm’s winning team included Chase Weidner, Andrew Freire, Nicholas Canelos, Jabari Julien, Nathalie Gunasekera, Amanda Bello, Amir Heidari, Simone Rivera, and Carolyn Ye.
Gibson Dunn advised Apollo-managed funds on the acquisition of Gatehouse Living Group, a vertically integrated U.K. residential investment and management platform.
The investment will expand upon Apollo’s investment activity in the U.K. housing ecosystem.
Gibson Dunn’s London corporate real estate team was led by partner Patrick Hennessy and included of counsel Sarah Leiper-Jennings and Manjinder Tiwana and associates Bansaree Shah and Carmen Heredia. Partner James Chandler and associate Sarah Johnson advised on tax matters. Associates Georgia Derbyshire and Olivia Sadler advised on employment matters. Partner Alison Beal and associates Libby Pica and Phoebe Rowson-Stevens advised on IP/IT/GDPR matters. Associate Amy Cooke advised on AML/ABC matters.
Gibson Dunn is advising American Ocean Minerals Corporation on its merger with Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. creating a $1 billion U.S.-controlled deep-sea critical minerals platform.
The Gibson Dunn corporate team includes partners John Gaffney and Eric Scarazzo and associate Vlad Zinovyev. Partner Matt Donnelly is advising on tax aspects, and partner Michael Collins is advising on benefits. Partner Andy Chen is advising on financing. Partner Bradley Smith is advising on antitrust aspects. Partner Michael Murphy is advising on environmental aspects. Partner Howard Hogan and associate Ellie Schwietering are advising on IP aspects. Associate Audi Syarief is advising on international trade aspects.
A Wall Street Journal article describing how Hong Kong has flourished as China’s hub for helping Iran survive punishing sanctions, much to the frustration of U.S. officials (“How Hong Kong Helps the Flow of Iran’s Hidden Billions,” April 11, 2026), includes commentary by partner Matt Axelrod.
Matt told the publication that, during the Biden administration, Chinese officials were reluctant to act when materials restricted by U.S. law were shipped through China. “There was definitely denial of responsibility to take action because it didn’t violate their laws,” he said. “And there was talk about sovereignty and what they viewed as our attempts to impose some sort of extraterritorial restrictions on U.S. items.”
Matt, who co-chairs Gibson Dunn’s Sanctions and Export Enforcement practice group, is a former Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Bureau of Industry and Security.
Interviewed by Global Investigations Review for its article “BIS on Hiring Spree as Trump Calls for ‘Historic’ Budget Boost” (April 3, 2026), partner Matt Axelrod, former Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Bureau of Industry and Security, noted that the funding boost and additional hirings will expand the agency’s enforcement capabilities. “The math is pretty simple,” Matt said. “More agents means more investigations, which ultimately means more enforcement actions.”
Gibson Dunn is advising Assertio Holdings on its sale to Garda Therapeutics.
In addition, Gibson Dunn is advising Assertio on its sale of the U.S. sales and distribution rights for a portfolio of seven branded products to Cosette Pharmaceuticals.
Our corporate team includes partners Ryan Murr, Branden Berns, and Evan D’Amico.
Gibson Dunn won five awards at this year’s Managing IP Americas Awards, including Patent Disputes Firm of the Year.
Two Gibson Dunn partners were also honored: Brian Rosenthal as Patent Litigator of the Year (New York) and Daniel Angel as Practitioner of the Year (IP Transactions).
In addition, the firm was recognized for its work on two Impact Cases of the Year: Incyte v. Sun Pharmaceutical (Fed Cir 2025) and Dewberry Group v. Dewberry Engineers (US Supr Ct 2025).
The Managing IP Americas Awards celebrate the achievements of the intellectual property law community in the Americas. The awards were presented in New York on April 9, 2026.
Partner Simon Tysoe shared his insights on the U.K. and global mining M&A landscape with Corporate Financier.
M&A in the mining sector is thriving thanks to gold and silver prices at an all-time high, and minerals such as lithium, copper, and rare earths are vital for electrification, computing and defence systems.
“London remains attractive to mining companies,” said Simon. “The U.K. capital has more liquidity for the larger players than, say, Canada – another major mining market – and it also has investors who feel very comfortable with large, listed entities whose businesses are entirely international, rather than domestic.
“There is a constant debate, with all natural resources, about whether it is better and cheaper to buy or to build. Does it make sense to do greenfield development to increase your production or to buy someone else to get that lift?”
Buy currently has the edge over build and is likely to do so for some time to come, added Simon.
The Original Jurisdiction article “Defense-Focused Biglaw Moves Into Plaintiff-Side Work” (April 9, 2026) featured commentary by partner Robert Weigel. He discussed the increase of plaintiff-side work in recent years: “Plaintiff-side work has added a dimension to big-firm practice that wasn’t there before.”
On March 30, 2026, a Gibson Dunn pro bono team secured a significant victory in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, vacating in significant part an administrative rule adopted by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”) that would have dramatically increased immigration-related filing fees. The rule targeted appeals, motions, and applications before immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals – raising some fees by as much as eightfold.
Earlier in the litigation, the court granted Gibson Dunn’s motion for a preliminary injunction in January 2021, blocking the majority of those increases from taking effect. In its summary judgment decision, the court reaffirmed that ruling and held that EOIR acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to meaningfully consider the impact of the fee increases on legal services providers and their ability to represent low-income and indigent noncitizens. The court concluded that such failure warranted vacatur of the six challenged fee increases, ensuring that the prior, lower fee structure remains in place.
The decision represents an important win that promotes fair and meaningful access to immigration proceedings and relief, including by preserving the ability of legal services organizations to continue providing critical representation to vulnerable populations. We are proud to partner with the American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Law Center in bringing this lawsuit, and to represent the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, Kids in Need of Defense, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles in their ongoing effort to provide free and affordable immigration legal services to indigent populations.
The Gibson Dunn team is led by partners Richard Mark, Joseph Evall, and Katie Marquart and includes associates Matthew Butler, Vanessa Ajagu and Felicia Reyes.
First up is a team led by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partners Theodore Boutrous Jr. and Blaine Evanson and Stoel Rives partner Brad Daniels that secured a significant appellate win for the Oregon utility company PacifiCorp in a wildfire class action. Plaintiffs whose property was damaged in four wildfires that burned over Labor Day weekend 2020 have already won more than $1 billion in total verdicts in follow-on, individual damages trials, with dozens more on the calendar. But this week the Oregon Court of Appeals held that the judge in the initial class action trial establishing PacifiCorp’s liability and negligence erred by instructing jurors to “assume that the evidence in the trial applies to all class members.” The appellate court reversed and remanded the initial class action verdict and invited the trial court to reconsider whether a single class was the appropriate vehicle to consider claims from four burn areas separated by well over 100 miles. The question of what sparked the largest of those fires is still contested by the parties. The team included Gibson Dunn partner Joseph Edmonds and associates Jacob Arber, Branton Nestor, James Rex Lee, Robert Frey and Varant Anmahouni.
A Sidley Austin team led by Daniel Feith worked alongside a separate appellate team at Gibson Dunn challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of small-refinery exemptions to their clients under the Clean Air Act’s Renewable Fuel Standard program. A unanimous D.C. Circuit panel held this week that the EPA’s interpretation of its own regulation—that the refineries were required to comply with the 75,000-barrel “small refinery” limit in 2023 as well as 2024—were contrary to the plain language of the statute, which indicated they need only comply in 2024. Feith argued on behalf of both petitioners. The Sidley team representing Alon Refining Krotz Springs Inc. also included Peter Whitfield, Cody Akins and Peter Bruland. The Gibson Dunn team representing HF Sinclair Parco Refining included Christine Buzzard, Robert Frey, Stephen Hammer, Allyson Ho, Lavi Ben Dor and M. Christian Talley.
Shout-out to litigators at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom representing Amadeus Hospitality and its parent company Amadeus IT Group SA in an antitrust class action claiming the company conspired with eight luxury hotel brands to inflate prices using the company’s Demand360 software platform. U.S. District Judge Joan Gottschall in Chicago last week dismissed the suit with prejudice, finding no evidence of any enforcement mechanism that would be needed to plausibly sustain a “price stabilization cartel.” The Skadden team leading the briefing on the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss included Karen Lent, Matt Martino, Amy Van Gelder, Sammuel Auld, Michael Lanci and Madeleine Gramigna. Douglas Litvack and Lindsay Harrison of Jenner & Block represented Hyatt Corp. Christopher Curran, J. Mark Gidley and J. Frank Hogue of White & Case represented Four Seasons Hotels Ltd. Carrie Mahan, Benjamin Mundel, Nicole Booth and Noah Fitzgerel of Sidley Austin represented Accor Management US Inc. Tammy Adkins of McGuireWoods and Jarrett Arp, Mari Grace, Neal Potischman and Tina Hwa Joe of Davis Polk & Wardwell represented Hilton Domestic Operating Co. Jeffrey Cashdan, Emily Newton, Lohr Beck, Caroline Buyak and Zachary Fardon of King & Spalding represented Six Continents Hotels Inc. Kristen Limarzi, Melanie Katsur and Sarah Akhtar of Gibson Dunn and Jeffrey Hansen and Matthew Kramer of Actuate Law represent Marriott International Inc., The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Katherine Forrest, Matthew Robinson and Paul Brachman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison represented Loews Hotels.
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Reprinted with permission from the April 9, 2026 edition of “The AmLaw Litigation Daily” © 2026 ALM Global Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited, contact 877-256-2472 or asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com.
The Hollywood Reporter has named partners Ted Boutrous, Ilissa Samplin, and Orin Snyder to its list of Hollywood’s 100 Most Powerful Lawyers. The publication said that lawyers on the list “worked on cases or deals in the past year that in some way, big or small, helped shape the town.”
The publication noted that Ted “has built a reputation for going to the mat for media freedoms,” including his work representing NPR and The New York Times. It said that clients turn to Ilissa “when Hollywood gets dragged into ugly fights over spinoffs, defamation and trade secrets,” and that in Orin’s world, “the fight is usually over who owns what.”
The Recorder [PDF] spoke with partner Ted Boutrous about his recent streak of appearances before 35 judges in a 44-day period. The stretch started on February 4 with a wildfire class action in the Oregon Court of Appeals and ended on March 18 with an en banc hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where he represented State Farm in an insurance case before 17 judges.
Ted’s arguments included cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal, the Oregon Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the California Superior Court and the Washington Superior Court and ran a gamut of topics. He said that the exposure to such a “great cross-section of the judiciary in a short period of time” affirmed his faith in the judicial system.
“Everyone is really just arguing these issues through to try to get to the right answer, and up and down the judiciary system across the country,” Ted said. “I think it’s something that we should all feel good about.”
Law360 [PDF] reported that Gibson Dunn successfully defended a Georgetown University student in a lawsuit against claims the university unlawfully fired a black Muslim administrator because of years-old social media posts she made disparaging Jewish activists that were reposted by the student. A federal judge ruled that the administrator hadn’t shown she was terminated for her background rather than inflammatory online comments.
Partner Elizabeth Papez told Law360 in a statement that her team was “proud to have achieved justice for our client in this lawsuit, which improperly sought to punish her exercise of First Amendment rights and chill the expression of countless others.” Along with Elizabeth, the team on the case included partner David Kusnetz and associate Lavi Ben Dor.
The CLS Blue Sky Blog has published “Gibson Dunn Discusses Delaware Supreme Court’s Revival of Nationwide Noncompete” (April 9, 2026) by partner Christine Demana and associate Tommy McCormac.
A Gibson Dunn Intellectual Property team has obtained a dismissal with prejudice of a patent infringement suit against financial services firm Plaid, Inc., with a Utah federal judge ruling that the asserted patent covering authentication processes for third-party transactions was directed to an abstract idea.
The win arises from an action brought by Secure Authentication Technologies LLC (SAT) alleging that Plaid’s products, which enable consumers to connect their bank accounts to their fintech apps, infringe its patent relating to technology for enabling a third party to gain access to online accounts otherwise protected by multi-factor authentication. Plaid moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing that the asserted claims are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Following a hearing in Salt Lake City in late February, Judge Kimball granted Plaid’s motion and dismissed SAT’s claims with prejudice. Judge Kimball found the claims were directed to the abstract idea of circumventing or managing an authentication process to facilitate a third-party intermediary transaction by maintaining account access. He also found the claims lacked any inventive concept, rejecting SAT’s arguments that were not based on the language of the claims and that relied merely on the abstract idea itself. Because the court found amendment would be futile, it dismissed SAT’s claims with prejudice.
The decision represents a significant win for Plaid, terminating the case early and sparing the company the burden of litigation against SAT. “From the time the Complaint was filed, it was clear that the plaintiff’s patent was ineligible under settled case law, and that this case should never have been brought,” partner Brian Rosenthal said in a statement. “We are very pleased that the Court vindicated our position. Our client Plaid looks forward to putting this meritless lawsuit behind it and continuing to provide best-in-class solutions to its customers.”
The case is Secure Authentication Technologies LLC v. Plaid, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-00514-DAK-JCB (D. Utah).
The Gibson Dunn team representing Plaid was led by partner Brian Rosenthal and included partners Brian Buroker and Jaysen Chung and associates Hannah Bedard, Michelle Zhu, Zak Khan, and Alex Chiang.