​Paul Collins is a litigation partner in the Palo Alto office. Mr. Collins has broad experience in securities and corporate governance litigation, class action defense, SEC and internal corporate investigations, and complex commercial litigation. He has represented corporations, boards of directors, board committees, investment banks and individuals on securities class actions and arbitrations; SEC, stock exchange and internal corporate investigations; litigation involving mergers and acquisitions and other aspects of corporate control and corporate governance; and fiduciary duty and insider trading issues.

Mr. Collins is a frequent writer and speaker on securities litigation and corporate governance topics, and has regularly worked on securities class action law reform matters.  His many civic activities include membership on the Board of Trustees of the Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services.

Mr. Collins is a member of the California and New York bars.

Legal History

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Palo Alto, California, March 1996 to present.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, New York, New York, 1992 to 1996.

Educational History

J.D., cum laude, Georgetown University Law Center, 1992.

B.A., magna cum laude, University of Washington, 1989.

Representative Publications

“Securities Litigation Pleading Standards,“ Securities Litigation, A Practitioners Guide (Practicing Law Institute 2006-2012). 

“Lead Plaintiffs Under the PSLRA,” Securities Litigation, A Practitioners Guide (Practicing Law Institute 2006-2012).

“The Court of Chancery and ‘Gatekeeper’ in M&A Litigation,” Delaware Business Court Insider (August 21, 2013).

“Pay Disclosure Suits:  To Fight?  Or to Settle?” Agenda (Financial Times) (May 13, 2013).

“Say on What?  Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Target ‘Say-on-Pay’ Disclosures in Annual Proxy Statements,” Wall Street Lawyer (April 2013).

“Worldcom:  Elusive Liability Standards for Shelf-Registrations Under Section 11″ – Securities Litigation Report, Volume 1, Number 10 (June 2005).

“Ninth Circuit Ruling in Gemstar Deals A Blow to the SEC’s Power Under Sarbanes-Oxley to Escrow “Extraordinary Payments” Made by Departing Executives,” Securities Litigation Report, Volume 1, Number 1 (July 2004).

“New Limitations on Insurance Coverage for Penalties,” InSights, Volume 17, Number 10 (October 2003).

“California Supreme Court Recognizes “Holder’s Action,” InSights, Volume 17, Number 6 (June 2003).

“Financial Disclosures:  Communications With Wall Street and the Financial Press,” University of Southern California, 2000 Institute for Corporate Counsel, Los Angeles, California (March 30, 2000).

Representative Matters

Intel Corporation  Mr. Collins represented Intel Corporation, McAfee, Inc. and former members of McAfee’s board of directors in a shareholder class action arising out of Intel’s February 2011 acquisition of McAfee.  Plaintiffs sued, shortly after McAfee announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Intel for approximately $7.7 billion in cash, alleging that McAfee’s directors breached their fiduciary duties by conducting an unfair sale process.  Defendants demonstrated that McAfee’s board conducted a process reasonably designed to maximize the sale price.

Diamond Foods, Inc.  Mr. Collins represents the Audit Committee of Diamond Foods in connection with its investigation of the company’s accounting for commodity acquisition costs and related state and federal shareholder derivative litigation.

Microsoft Corporation  Mr. Collins represents Microsoft and certain of its directors and officers in a securities class action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington arising from Microsoft’s marketing of its first generation Surface RT tablet and related accounting for the value of its Surface RT inventory.

Intel Corporation  Mr. Collins represented Intel Corp. in a securities class action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York arising from the 2010 initial public offering of Smart Technologies, Inc. – a company in which Intel held a substantial investment both before and after the IPO.  After significantly narrowing the class at the class certification stage, the case settled on terms involving no contribution by Intel.

Emulex Corp.  Mr. Collins represented Emulex Corporation in its defense of an unsolicited tender offer and related proxy contest launched by Broadcom Corp. in 2009. Emulex invoked the “just say no” defense and, after months of litigation, Broadcom dropped its hostile bid on the eve of trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Openwave Systems, Inc.  Mr. Collins represented Openwave Systems in a securities class action and related shareholder derivative action arising out of alleged backdating of stock options.

Amazon.com  Mr. Collins defended Amazon.com and its officers and directors in 15 class action cases filed in the Western District of Washington, alleging that the Company issued misleading disclosures concerning its strategic partnering relationships, and improperly accounted for the revenues in connection with those partnering relationships. Our motions to dismiss have been granted with respect to a majority of claims, and additional motions to dismiss are still pending. We successfully resolved a related SEC investigation.

Goldman Sachs & Co.  Mr. Collins defended Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan as underwriters of various Exodus Communications securities offerings.  The case settled after we secured dismissal of the initial complaint in the matter.

Catterton Partners  Mr. Collins represented Catterton Partners, a private equity firm, in litigation arising out of its acquisition of Restoration Hardware.  Shareholders challenged the transaction on Revlon grounds, but the litigation was successfully resolved and the acquisition closed on schedule.

R² Investments LDC  Mr. Collins represented R² Investments, a minority shareholder of XO Communications, in a lawsuit challenging a proposed sale of virtually all of XO’s assets to its majority shareholder, Carl Icahn. We challenged the proposed transaction in the Delaware Court of Chancery and XO and Mr. Icahn voluntarily terminated the proposed transaction.

Thoratec Corporation  Mr. Collins represented Thoratec Corporation and certain of its directors and officers in a securities class action and related shareholder derivative action related to one of the Company’s new product lines. We obtained dismissals of the securities class action complaint and successfully moved the court to stay and ultimately dismiss the derivative action.

Golden State Vintners, Inc.  Mr. Collins represented the former CEO of GSV and an acquisition entity in several cases arising from the bidding contest that resulted in the acquisition of GSV by The Wine Group in July 2004.  We secured the dismissal of securities fraud claims against our clients, GSV and other GSV directors and officers arising from GSV’s disclosures before and during the bidding contest.