Class Actions

Gerber Products Company

Won dismissal of 29 putative class actions consolidated in the Eastern District of Virginia. Plaintiffs filed more than 130 consumer class actions against all major baby food manufacturers in courts nationwide, alleging that the manufacturers failed to make adequate disclosures to consumers regarding their baby food products. We successfully consolidated all of the cases against Gerber, then won dismissal of the plaintiffs' representative complaint on multiple grounds.

Vale

White & Case represents Vale S.A., the largest producer of iron ore and nickel in the world, in the group action taking place in the English Courts relating to the collapse of the Fundao Dam in Brazil in 2015.

Fiverr

Secured a complete dismissal with prejudice for Fiverr, a multinational public technology company, in two putative class actions arising out of deceptive-pricing allegations in California and New York.

Global biotechnology company

Representing the client in 1,000+ state court proceedings in Germany related to product liability claims and claims for information. The legal proceedings were initiated by individual plaintiffs in more than 100 different courts across Germany. As several of the plaintiff law firms are handling hundreds of cases, the defense in these proceedings across three court instances requires a coordinated approach and strategy.

Fitness International, LLC

Secured a significant consumer class action victory for nationwide fitness club operator LA Fitness, in California state court and arbitration. The plaintiff sought to invalidate the arbitration provision in their agreement, seek class-wide relief, and obtain substantial discovery relating to LA Fitness's practices and other members. White & Case successfully moved the case to arbitration, defeated the plaintiff's multiple attempts to dismiss the arbitration, opposed repeated efforts to assert claims on behalf of a class and opposed the plaintiff's repeated requests for broad discovery under a new California law. Our team prevailed on all claims, achieving a complete defense victory.

Southwest Energy

Secured dismissal of four class actions against our client, Southwest Energy, a Tulsa-based independent natural gas marketer, in federal court in Kansas. All four class actions were dismissed with prejudice. All classes comprised consumers of natural gas that accused Southwest Energy, along with other defendants, including BP Energy, Macquarie, Energy Transfer and Tenaska, of price gouging and violating the Kansas Consumer Protection Act (KCPA) by allegedly raising the price of natural gas sold to plaintiffs through distributors during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.

BlueTriton Brands

Secured dismissal in three putative class actions across the country alleging the presence of microplastics in the company's bottled water products caused its product labels to be deceptive. The cases against BlueTriton were three of several putative class actions filed against the leading domestic bottled water companies alleging violations of consumer protection laws based on the alleged presence of microplastics in their products. White & Case, on behalf of BlueTriton, was the first law firm to win dismissal of these microplastics putative class actions filed against the bottled water industry. We continue to represent bottled water companies in similar matters across the country.

Asacol

Won reversal of class certification from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in an antitrust monopolization case where plaintiffs challenged the development of a new phthalate-free version of its ulcerative colitis drug, Asacol, as illegal "product hopping. " The case turned on uninjured class members, and specifically the inability of class action plaintiffs to prove which members of the proposed nationwide class were injured versus uninjured. The landmark ruling, premised on the Seventh Amendment and Rules Enabling Act, represented a turning of the tide against the previously widespread reliance on "claims administration" as a substitute for fact-finding by juries. The Asacol ruling has been cited in more than 150 decisions as the gold standard in cases involving uninjured class members and has implications far beyond antitrust litigation.

Apex Clearing Corporation

Defeated 50+ proposed class action lawsuits for Apex Clearing Corporation arising from the 2021 meme stock-trading frenzy, where it was alleged that Apex, a clearing broker, had wrongfully stopped accepting trades on January 28, 2021 at the height of the meme stock bubble. The event triggered several well-publicized government agency and congressional probes and inspired the movie Dumb Money—with the Eleventh Circuit affirming a blockbuster win that reaffirmed brokers' rights to reject trades and manage risk in the face of market uncertainty. The victory ended all consumer antitrust and follow-on tort litigation against Apex.

AbbVie Inc.

Secured the dismissal of a "pay for delay" pharmaceutical antitrust class action alleging generic delay of hypertension drug Bystolic. Bystolic is the first time the Second Circuit has applied the Supreme Court's Actavis standard announced in 2013, and the first appellate decision since Actavis to uphold dismissal of antitrust claims against multiple pharmaceutical patent settlements containing so-called "side deals. " This groundbreaking matter helped White & Case win Law360's Class Action Group of the Year award (for the fourth time) and LMG's Life Sciences Antitrust Firm of the Year award. Multiple industry publications, including the Legal 500 and The American Lawyer, also recognized the matter for its importance.