Transnational Litigation

Gibson Dunn is a recognized, premier leader in transnational litigation, with an unequalled track record of successfully defending our clients from threats posed by cross-border plaintiffs in national courts around the world. Our practice group includes over 175 lawyers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and our clients include numerous global corporations and sovereign governments. We litigate in U.S. and other courts and before arbitral tribunals seated throughout the world. These representations have involved litigation implicating more than 70 countries in a wide variety of substantive contexts, including multi-jurisdictional environmental, tort, and contract disputes, climate change and ESG, global media management, technology, and intellectual property.

We have represented clients in some of the highest-profile cases across the globe, including Chevron Corporation in what The American Lawyer called “The Case of the Century”: Chevron’s successful RICO and fraud suit to bar enforcement of a $9 billion corrupt Ecuadorian judgment.

Our team is skilled, creative, and experienced in managing all aspects of transnational litigation, including devising, coordinating, and implementing the outside-the-box offensive and defensive global strategies that are crucial for success in this arena. Our lawyers have deep knowledge and experience with the various legal and factual issues that arise in transnational litigation, including: global fact investigations; cross-border discovery; jurisdictional disputes and extraterritoriality issues, forum non conveniens, and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act; corporate separateness; presentation and management of foreign legal issues and foreign law experts in US courts; foreign judgment defense, enforcement, and asset recovery; and use of RICO and parallel regulations in offensive litigation. The team has also spearheaded extensive, high-stakes UK and Commonwealth litigation.

Our leading position in transnational litigation is recognized by various legal ranking publications. For example, the firm is ranked in Tier 1 by Legal 500 U.S. for International Litigation, and Chambers Global recognized our practice among the leading for Multi-Jurisdictional Dispute Resolution. The American Lawyer has also recognized the group’s work, separately naming the group’s representations of NML Capital and Chevron Corporation as “Global Dispute of the Year” during its yearly Global Legal Awards.

“The undisputed premier firm in highly complex, high-value litigation, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher‘s transnational disputes team boasts superb lawyers with great breadth of experience.” – The Legal 500 United States 

“The reason I hired Gibson Dunn was because the matter involved international elements. They staffed the matter perfectly, with experts in the relevant jurisdictions who worked collaboratively so that I felt the team had been working together for years.” – Client Quote, The Legal 500 United States

Representative Matters

• Secured an important victory before the U.S. Supreme Court for Nestlé USA, Inc. in a case addressing extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. The decision was a significant win for Nestlé USA in a case that has endured for over 15 years, with the claims still having never advanced beyond the pleading stage.  (Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 141 S.Ct. 1931 (2021))
• Representation of Dell Technologies in a putative class action brought by the residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo which alleges that Dell (and other defendants) produced cobalt-containing technologies using forced labor.  (Doe et al. v. Apple Inc. et al., No. 19-cv-03737 (D.D.C.)).
• Won dismissal with prejudice for Oath Holdings of Alien Tort Statute, Torture Victim Protection Act, and California Unfair Competition Law claims arising out of alleged activity in the People’s Republic of China. (Ning Xianhua v. Oath Holdings, Inc. et al., No. 20-cv-06185 (N.D. Cal.))
• Representation of Eli Lilly in Brazilian litigation brought against its subsidiary, Eli Lilly do Brasil Ltda., arising from allegations that former workers were exposed to environmental contamination at an industrial facility. Since Gibson Dunn’s involvement, hundreds of claims brought against Lilly Brazil have been dismissed, and no new judgments have been issued against Lilly Brazil at the trial-court level.
• Representation of Dole Food Company in environmental litigation brought by tens of thousands of plaintiffs nationally and internationally. Alleging exposure to DBCP, Plaintiffs from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama and the Ivory Coast brought claims both across the United States and in the plaintiffs’ countries of origin. Tens of thousands of claims have been successfully defeated and no claims have survived to judgment since Gibson Dunn became lead Dole counsel.
• Secured dismissal of an arbitral enforcement action against Chevron of a sham $18 billion arbitration award procured in Egypt. (Al-Qarqani v. Chevron Corp., No. C 18-03297 JSW (N.D. Cal.)) The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal finding that “there was no binding agreement to arbitrate between the parties.” (Al-Qarqani v. Chevron Corp., 8 F.4th 1018, 1025 (9th Cir. 2021)).
• Achieved a complete dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds of a $1.1 billion lawsuit brought against General Electric by Angolan corporations that formerly distributed GE power equipment in Angola. Plaintiffs alleged that three GE affiliates interfered with the plaintiffs’ relationship with the Angolan government, causing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in business. In a comprehensive, 43-page opinion, the judge adopted the vast majority of our forum non conveniens arguments. (Aenergy, S.A., et al. v. Republic of Angola, et al., No. 20-cv-03569 (S.D.N.Y.)). The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal.  (Aenergy, S.A. v. Republic of Angola, 31 F.4th 119 (2d Cir. 2022)).
• Obtained a victory for Daimler AG before the U.S. Supreme Court in a transnational case, in which the Court held that it violates due process for a U.S. court to exercise general personal jurisdiction over a non-U.S. corporation based on the fact that an indirect corporate subsidiary performs services on behalf of the defendant in the forum state.
• Secured an order, on behalf of Crystallex, attaching the shares of PDV Holding, Inc. (PDVH), nominally held by PDVSA, Venezuela’s national oil company, which Crystallex successfully argued is the alter ego of Venezuela. The attachment was in aid of a $1.4 billion award that Crystallex won against Venezuela. PDVH owns multibillion-dollar U.S. refiner CITGO Petroleum. The District Court has since authorized, subject to potential OFAC approval, the sale of shares of CITGO in satisfaction of Crystallex’s judgment.
• Resolved groundbreaking, multibillion-dollar litigation by NML Capital against the Republic of Argentina when Argentina paid NML more than $2.4 billion to satisfy NML’s claims on the country’s defaulted bonds. This settlement marked the conclusion of what the Financial Times called the “sovereign debt trial of the century” and ended 13 years of litigation following Argentina’s default in 2001 on more than $80 billion in external debt.