Litigation partners Kannon Shanmugam, Jaren Janghorbani and Crystal Parker and their Paul, Weiss team were named sole “Litigator of the Week” runners up by The American Lawyer for their Second Circuit win zeroing out a $570 million damages award against IT services firm Syntel.
Paul, Weiss was retained shortly before trial to defend Syntel in a trade secrets case filed by Cognizant Technology and its subsidiary TriZetto Group in one of the first civil jury trials in the Southern District of New York during the pandemic. After Cognizant won an $855 million verdict, the publication noted, the Paul, Weiss team persuaded the court to trim the award by more than a quarter-billion dollars post trial, and subsequently appealed the verdict.
In its decision on May 25, the Second Circuit panel found that TriZetto wasn’t entitled to unjust enrichment damages under the federal trade secrets act based on Syntel’s avoided development costs. “Syntel’s misappropriation did not diminish, much less destroy, the secrets’ continued commercial value to TriZetto,” the court wrote. “TriZetto’s valuable trade secrets are still that—valuable and secret.” Kannon argued the appeal for Syntel.
