Litigation partners Audra Soloway and Josh Hill were recognized in The American Lawyer’s April 11 “Litigation Daily” column for their resounding victory on behalf of Canadian mining company Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. and its former CEO, winning an almost unheard-of court decision denying in its entirety a motion to certify a class in a putative securities class action.
The class certification denial order in Kirkland Gold is the first substantive decision applying Paul, Weiss’s Second Circuit win in Arkansas Teachers Retirement System v. Goldman Sachs, which addressed the legal standard for rebutting price impact in securities fraud class actions proceeding under a price inflation maintenance theory. U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York denied class certification on predominance grounds, finding that defendants had rebutted the presumption of reliance.
Litigation associates Alison Benedon, Andrea Keller, Jennifer Gilbert, Brian Erickson, Kevin Madden and Jasmine “Kat” Cooper were also named in the article.
