Gina Spinosa, Author at Gibson Dunn

In their Law360 [PDF] article “What Brazil’s Adequacy Status Will Mean for EU Data Flow,” Paris partners Ahmed Baladi and Vera Lukic and associate Hermine Hubert examine the European Commission’s decision to formally recognize Brazil as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the European Union — status that positions Brazil as a major gateway for EU-Latin America data flows. The authors also address the key findings underlying the commission’s assessment, compare Brazil’s position with other recognized jurisdictions, both within Latin America and beyond, and provide practical guidance for organizations navigating international data transfers in light of these developments.

Writing for The Texas Lawbook [PDF], partner Collin Cox and associate Jack DiSorbo discuss Gibson Dunn’s victory in the second-ever Business Court trial in Mesquite Energy v. Sanchez Oil & Gas Corp., and lessons learned from the first four Business Court trials, which “shed light on what complex commercial litigation looks like for a trial lawyer in our State’s newest judicial venue.”

The article was published in The Texas Lawbook on March 11, 2026.

Lawdragon has named 18 Gibson Dunn lawyers to its list of 500 Leading Global Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers. The publication calls these lawyers “the advisors who can keep their cool for companies, investors, governments and others on the fiscal precipice.”

Congratulations to: Andrew Cheng, Michael Cohen, Steven Domanowski, Jean-Pierre Farges, AnnElyse Scarlett Gains, Jason Zachary Goldsein, Scott Greenberg, Christopher Howard, Jeffrey Krause, Caith Kushner, Frederick Lee, Keith Martorana, Eugene Park, Stephen Silverman, Lisa Stevens, Presley Warner, Matthew Williams, and C. Lee Wilson.

A Gibson Dunn team recently secured a sweeping bench-trial victory for five South Florida hospitals in a case against The Leapfrog Group, the nonprofit organization that publishes widely distributed A–F “Hospital Safety Grades.” The decision halts a widely disseminated hospital rating system the court found deceptive and punitive and reinforces limits on private organizations presenting ratings as measures of healthcare safety.

Following a five-day trial, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that Leapfrog’s grading methodology for non-participating hospitals violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA). Judge Donald Middlebrooks held that Leapfrog’s methodology “has no scientific basis, unfairly penalizes non-participating hospitals, and misrepresents hospital safety,” concluding that Leapfrog’s conduct constituted “an unfair and deceptive business practice.”

The ruling provides significant relief for Gibson Dunn’s clients—Tenet Healthcare Corporation-owned hospitals Delray Medical Center, Good Samaritan Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, St. Mary’s Medical Center, and West Boca Medical Center—and addresses the use of ratings presented to the public as measures of hospital safety when, as the court found, they did not reflect actual hospital performance.

The court granted broad injunctive relief tailored to the conduct it found unlawful. The order requires Leapfrog to stop assigning grades to the five hospitals under the challenged or similar methodology, withdraw the Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025 grades from its websites, send corrective disclosures to entities that licensed the grades, and include corrective disclosures in future licensing materials

The injunction also prohibits Leapfrog from circumventing the relief by implementing substantially similar grading practices.

The Gibson Dunn team was led by partners Mary Beth Maloney, Sydney Scott, and Lee Crain, with Mary Beth serving as lead trial counsel. Partners Scott Hvidt and Daniel Chung played key roles in the trial presentation, and Helgi Walker, co-chair of the firm’s global Litigation Practice Group, helped shape the legal strategy and briefing. Of counsel Christine Buzzard played a central role in the briefing and trial presentation and delivered her first trial-court argument at the close of plaintiffs’ case.

The broader team included associates Kevin Simmons, Marc Aaron Takagaki, and Emily Cardone, who examined witnesses at trial; Kevin Reilly, who argued numerous deposition-designation disputes; Adam Garnick, Allyson Parks, Andrew Kuntz, Mary Otoo, Karsyn Archambeau, Noah Delwiche, Monica Grover, Robert Batista, and Christian Talley; and additional lawyers across Gibson Dunn offices who supported discovery, briefing, and trial preparation.

The New York Times article “Trump’s Actions in Iran and Venezuela Show Limits of U.S. Sanctions” (subscription required) features commentary by partner Adam Smith. Adam said, “I think sanctions are designed to degrade not to sort of cause something to collapse. Sanctions, I think, change the board game but don’t get a checkmate.”

A big “F”.

That was the image that Mary Beth Maloney of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher used at the beginning of her opening statement earlier this year on behalf of five South Florida community hospitals challenging changes that The Leapfrog Group made to the way the non-profit formulates its letter-based safety grades for hospitals.

That’s also the way that U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in West Palm Beach started his post-trial decision last week finding the changes harmed hospitals who did not participate in Leapfrog’s survey and constituted unfair and deceptive business practice under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Middlebrooks wrote that Leapfrog’s methodology change “has no scientific basis, unfairly penalizes non-participating hospitals, and misrepresents hospital safety.”

Our Litigators of the Week are Maloney and her partners Sydney Scott and Lee Crain.

Lit Daily: Who were your clients and what was at stake here?

Mary Beth Maloney: We represented five Tenet Healthcare Corporation-owned South Florida community hospitals: Good Samaritan, Delray Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, St. Mary’s Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center. The Leapfrog Group publishes A-through-F Hospital Safety Grades and markets them as measures of patient safety. The court found that Leapfrog was presenting those grades as meaningful indicators of hospital safety even though they “are not based upon performance” and instead reflected Leapfrog’s “acknowledged goal of punishing nonparticipants.” The court ultimately held that Leapfrog’s methodology “has no scientific basis, unfairly penalizes non-participating hospitals, and misrepresents hospital safety,” and that its conduct “constitutes an unfair and deceptive business practice.” That mattered because the grades affected how people viewed these hospitals and, in some cases, where they sought care.

How did this matter come to you and your firm?

Maloney: Tenet has been a long-standing client of the firm, and this matter grew out of that broader relationship.

Who was on your team and how did you divide the work? Did you break things down by individual hospital since you essentially had five different clients with five separate CEOs?

Sydney Scott: This was a cross-office Gibson Dunn effort, with Jeff Marcus serving as local counsel. Mary Beth Maloney served as lead trial counsel. Lawyers across offices handled major parts of the trial presentation, witness examinations, briefing, and legal issues. We did not divide the case strictly by hospital, but we did organize it so that hospital-specific proof was clearly developed while the common liability case was presented in a unified way. That allowed us to try one common case while also addressing each hospital’s separate proof.

You dropped your damages claim when you amended your complaint. Why try this case to the bench instead of a jury?

Lee Crain: Because the central goal was to stop the conduct, not seek a damages award. The harm was ongoing and reputational, and the cleanest way to address it was through declaratory and injunctive relief.

This was a dense record about methodology, consumer-facing grades, internal communications and targeted equitable relief.

Ms. Maloney, you started your opening statement by presenting a large “F” image and the judge opens his opinion in the same way. Why did you start there?

Maloney: Because that was the message Leapfrog put in front of the public. The “F” was the consumer-facing product. The issue in the case was not what could be found later in a methodology document. It was the immediate impression created by the grade itself. The court’s order begins in the same place for the same reason: that was what patients and families saw, and that was the message that shaped behavior.

The court credited testimony about real-world patient harm, including patients leaving hospitals against medical advice. Which pieces of evidence or testimony do you think most powerfully illustrated the real-world consequences of the changes to this grading system?

Scott: The most powerful evidence came from the hospital CEOs, because they could connect the grade to what was happening in their hospitals and communities. St. Mary’s also showed the broader system impact. It is the region’s only children’s hospital and one of only two Level I trauma centers, yet the evidence showed patients were sometimes going first to hospitals that could not actually treat them and then being transferred back to St. Mary’s for the care they needed, resulting in delay and added cost. And the CEOs testified that some patients arrived genuinely fearful because of the grade. These were only the examples we know about. They do not capture the patients who may have avoided these hospitals altogether because they were deterred by a failing grade the court ultimately found deceptive.

Right after the judge’s summary judgment decision, the 11th Circuit issued a decision in FTC v. Corpay, which affected the showing you had to make for injunctive relief under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act—clarifying that proving a likelihood of future consumer harm could get you across the bar. How did you navigate those changes in law in your trial presentation?

Scott: We addressed it directly and promptly. Corpay came down the same day as the summary judgment ruling, and we brought it to the court’s attention in briefing and oral argument before and during trial. Ultimately, that mattered. In the final order, the court reconsidered its earlier view and held that, for injunctive and declaratory relief, both deception and unfairness under FDUTPA may be shown by conduct that is likely to cause injury to consumers. The court then found both actual harm and a likelihood of future harm on the record before it.

Walk me through the injunctive relief here. How will these court-ordered changes address what the judge found to be deceptive and unfair?

Crain: The injunction was tailored closely to the conduct the court found unlawful. First, it stops Leapfrog from assigning grades to these hospitals under a methodology that uses assumed values, treats non-participating hospitals differently or lowers a grade because a hospital declined to submit data. Second, it requires Leapfrog to take down the challenged grades and stop promoting them. Third, it requires corrective disclosures to the entities that licensed those grades and corrective language in future paid licensing materials. So the relief addresses both the ongoing practice and the information already put into circulation.

What else is significant in the judge’s decision for others facing a situation like your clients faced here?

Maloney: The decision makes clear that nonprofit status or watchdog branding does not insulate an organization from scrutiny when the underlying conduct is unfair or deceptive. If an organization is going to publish consumer-facing judgments that affect real-world decisions, those judgments have to be fair and grounded in what is actually being measured. It also shows that injunctive relief can be available when the remedy is practical, targeted and equitable.

What will you remember most about this matter?

Crain: What I will remember most is the strength of the evidence. The record showed not just a flawed methodology, but repeated representations that the grades were grounded in expert review when court ultimately found otherwise. That evidence—especially from Leapfrog’s own leadership and own internal emails—was central to the result.

Scott: The clients—especially the five hospital CEOs. They were thoughtful, credible leaders who are deeply connected to the patients and communities they serve. That came through clearly in their testimony and kept the case grounded in what actually mattered.

Maloney: The clients trusted us to handle a demanding case on a compressed timeline, and the lawyers across our offices rose to that challenge.

It was especially rewarding to see younger lawyers take on meaningful roles. In my experience, the best advocacy is often done quietly in the background, through preparation, collaboration, and judgment, and this team reflected that.

Reprinted with permission from the March 13, 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.

Gibson Dunn advised an affiliate of SGF Capital on its sale of approximately $1.9 billion of common stock of Diamondback Energy in a registered public offering.

The Gibson Dunn team included partners Hillary Holmes and Cynthia Mabry, of counsel Patrick Cowherd, and associates Malakeh Hijazi and Caroline Simms.

An article in the New York Law Journal [PDF], “Inside the Strategy Behind Gibson Dunn’s Rapid NYC Expansion,” notes that the firm’s New York office is among the fastest growing in Big Law: its headcount has increased 40% in the past five years. While the firm is not managing toward specific headcount numbers, chair and managing partner Barbara Becker said Gibson Dunn has succeeded in landing partners who sought “destination practices.”

“The strategy is to build destination practices in everything we do by being very intentional about who we hire and making sure that every person fits in from a culture perspective and from a quality perspective,” Barbara said. “It has served us really well, and we do it across the board in litigation and white collar and investigations and also in M&A, private equity, real estate, and restructuring.”

The article also features comments by Mylan Denerstein and Andrew Fabens, Co-Partners in Charge of the New York office, and highlights the firm’s emphasis on organic growth and maintaining a balanced mix of litigation and corporate practices.

Gibson Dunn is advising an ad hoc group of lenders and noteholders on the financial restructuring of Cumulus Media, Inc. and certain of its affiliates to eliminate approximately $600 million in debt from its balance sheet. Cumulus has initiated a “pre-packaged” chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas with the support of the ad hoc group, which comprises the overwhelming majority of holders of the company’s outstanding principal term loan facility maturing in 2029 and senior secured notes maturing in 2029. Cumulus will remain fully operational for the duration of the cases.

The firm’s Business Restructuring and Reorganization team is led by partners Scott Greenberg, Stephen Silverman, and Michael Cohen and includes of counsel Francis Petrie and associates Tommy Scheffer, Alex Xiao, Adeola Adeyosoye, Patrice Oseni, and Zach Hanusek.

Of counsel Rodrigo Surcan dos Santos is advising on capital markets matters, of counsel Lafayette Greenfield II on regulatory matters, partner Ed Wei and associates Emily Risher Brooks and Letian Wang on tax, and partner Andrew Cheng, of counsel Veronica Bonhamgregory, and associate Robert Bollinger on finance matters.

The Law360 article “Employment Law Cases Have Rebounded Except for FLSA” [PDF] features commentary by partner Jason Schwartz. Jason said that while FLSA cases “haven’t gone away … plaintiff lawyers are trying to use more employee-friendly state laws to bring those actions.”

Partners Eric Sloan and James Jennings and associate David Horton have written for TAXES – The Tax Magazine [PDF]: “Unlike the regulations addressing the allocation of partnership recourse liabilities, the regulations addressing the allocation of nonrecourse liabilities are brief, leave many gaps to be filled, and provide — implicitly and explicitly — taxpayers with considerable latitude. As a result, it simply is not possible for a taxpayer to comply with the regulations without exercising judgment and discretion.”

The Dow Jones Risk Journal published remarks made by partner Vivek Mohan at the recent Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit in New York. He spoke about the challenges faced by companies attempting to balance the drive for innovation with evolving legal and regulatory changes.

“Penalties for noncompliance can sometimes be a cost of doing business; perfection is very hard,” Vivek said. “But when you get to the place where there are limitations on your ability to make decisions, launch new products or services, or run the business the way you want, that is actually I think the hammer that keeps CEOs and other leadership up at night.”

Vivek is Co-Chair of our Artificial Intelligence Practice Group.

The Washington Post article “Trump Moves to Undo Tax Rule That Biden Said Would Bring in $100 Billion” (subscription required) features commentary by partner Eric Sloan. He said of the Biden administration’s tax rule: “The problem was that the way they did the regulations, they were almost impossible to comply with.”

Gibson Dunn served as counsel to Nasdaq in the creation of Nasdaq Texas, the newest Texas-based national securities exchange. Our Houston-based team of partner Hillary Holmes and associates Muriel Hague and Anna Strong worked closely with Nasdaq in creating the Texas entity and setting up the stock exchange for its historic launch on March 5, 2026.

Nasdaq Texas is a dual-listing venue that expands Nasdaq’s presence in the state by providing companies with the ability to list on an exchange formed under Texas law while maintaining access to Nasdaq’s global platform, technology, and market infrastructure. It reflects Nasdaq’s long-term investment in Texas and its commitment to supporting capital formation across the region.

Writing for Law360 [PDF], partners Michael Holecek and Andrew G.I. Kilberg and associate Tim Kolesk discuss how the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed 2026 independent contractor rule “would help preserve flexible, independent work arrangements in the gig economy, particularly for app-based models.”

Gibson Dunn has secured a major victory for Border Timbers Ltd in the U.K. Supreme Court on an important point of international and England and Wales law.

The U.K. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from Zimbabwe against Border Timbers after the country was found to have expropriated the company’s assets in an arbitration award in 2015 that ordered Zimbabwe to pay $125 million.

The Supreme Court held that, as Zimbabwe was a signatory of the 1965 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes, it had waived its adjudicative immunity and submitted to the jurisdiction of English and Welsh courts in respect of the enforcement of the ICSID award. The Supreme Court also clarified the law in an important respect by explaining that Lord Goff’s widely referenced speech in Ex. p. Pinochet (No. 3) [2000] 1 AC 147 adopted “an unnecessarily narrow view of what may constitute an express waiver of immunity.”

Gibson Dunn partner Christopher Harris KC, Global Co-Chair of the firm’s International Arbitration Practice Group and its Judgment and Award Enforcement Practice Group, was lead counsel for Border Timbers.

Gibson Dunn advised RedBird IMI on the £575 million ($767 million) sale of its interests in Telegraph Media Group (TMG) to German-based media group Axel Springer.

The Gibson Dunn team advising RedBird IMI included partners Robert Dixon, Ali Nikpay, Richard Birns, James Chandler, Kavita Davis, and Sean McFarlane; of counsel Ben Nunez and Dom Kinsky; and associates Freddie Wright, Oliver Hill, and Tom Capper.

Lawdragon has named 12 Gibson Dunn lawyers to its list of 100 Leading AI & Legal Tech Advisors. The publication calls those selected the “litigators who are shaping the laws of this revolutionary technology, and the dealmakers that are applying the technology in fascinating ways.”

Congratulations to: Ahmed Baladi, Ashlie Beringer, Ted Boutrous, Keith Enright, Cassandra Gaedt-Sheckter, Lore Leitner, Vera Lukic, Vivek Mohan, Orin Snyder, Robert Spano, Eric Vandevelde, and Frances Waldmann.

Partner Stephen Silverman was recently a guest on the Debtwire Legal Lens podcast. Among the topics discussed were recent trends around the formation of ad hoc groups, chapter 11 versus out of court control dynamics, and various crossholder considerations.

Gibson Dunn advised Gryphon Investors, a San Francisco-based middle-market private investment firm, on its majority investment in HRSoft, a leading provider of enterprise compensation management software based in Denver, Colorado.

The Gibson Dunn M&A team was led by partners Abtin Jalali and Michelle Gourley and included associates Kriti Hannon and Andy Strader. Partner Daniel Angel and associate Nate Hancock advised on IP, partner Michael Collins advised on benefits, partner Matt Donnelly and associate Blake Hoerster advised on tax, and partner Cassandra Gaedt-Sheckter and associate Amanda Estep advised on data privacy.