Broken Promises
July 2008, The American Lawyer

The July issue of American Lawyer features an in-depth article about the five-year Stolt-Nielsen amnesty case.  Led by Christopher Curran and J. Mark Gidley, White & Case represented Stolt-Nielsen throughout the civil and criminal portions of the case. The article details the case history and White & Case's strategy on behalf of Stolt-Nielsen, especially during the final three-week hearing in a federal court in Philadelphia.

The precedent-setting case was the first ever to involve a written promise not to prosecute under the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division's amnesty program. Stolt-Nielsen, an international shipping and transportation company, signed an agreement with the DOJ in 2003, but the DOJ suspended the agreement four months later, even though Stolt was cooperating with the DOJ. White & Case filed a civil suit in 2004 to force the US government to keep the agreement.  A judge found for Stolt, but the DOJ quickly appealed, and the appeals court found for the DOJ, who then indicted Stolt and its executives, for price-fixing. White & Case filed a motion in criminal court to dismiss the indictments.

The Stolt criminal trial lasted three and a half weeks, and involved innovative methods and evidence, such as extra-territorial witness testimony via live videoconference. In December 2007, in a 35-page decision, Judge Bruce Kauffman enforced Stolt-Nielsen's amnesty from criminal antitrust prosecution by the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division and declared the Division’s indictment a breach of Stolt’s due process rights. The DOJ did not appeal the decision.

The White & Case trial team led by Christopher Curran and J. Mark Gidley included George Paul, Peter Carney, Eric Grannon, Eileen Cole, Albie Lau, Jaime Crowe, Kristen McAhren, Danielle Karst, Jeremy Ostrander, Eric Herbst, Christopher Macchiaroli, Anna Kertesz, Dana Foster, Andrew Lee, Ambre McLaughlin, Christine Brennan, Jason McElroy, Daniel Kanter, Sharon Alavi, Richard Yun and Justin Sadowsky (Washington, DC); Marty Toto, Patrick Eyers, David Suggs, and Joanne Jackson (New York).