Latest Case: Yukos Capital S.A.R.L. v. Feldman (Securities Law)

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JOANNA L. GROSSMAN, LINDA C. MCCLAIN

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Boston University law professor Linda C. McClain comment on COVID-19, toxic masculinity, and the state of national politics today. Grossman and McClain contrast President Trump’s reckless bravado that endangers the lives of Americans with the empathy of Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden’s in asking people to be patriotic by doing their part by wearing masks to protect other Americans.

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Should Department of Justice Lawyers Defy William Barr?

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on an open letter addressed to the 100,000 professionals working in the U.S. Department of Justice and published by Lawyers Defending Democracy. In the letter, more than 600 members of the bar from across the United States call on their DOJ colleagues to refrain from “participating in political misuse of the DOJ in the elction period ahead.” Sarat argues that the letter rightly recognizes that Attorney General Barr’s blatant partisanship endangers the integrity of the DOJ itself and its role in preserving the rule of law.

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Yukos Capital S.A.R.L. v. Feldman

Docket: 19-1109

Opinion Date: October 8, 2020

Judge: Underhill

Areas of Law: Securities Law

A jury found that defendant had, through his actions in two distinct schemes, breached his fiduciary duty to Yukos, YHIL, Foundation 1, and Foundation 2 (collectively, the "Yukos Group"), as well as Mark Fleischman, as Trustee of the 2015 Security Trust, as successor in interest to the 2014 Security Trust. In this case, neither the Yukos Group nor Fleischman had sought compensatory damages for defendant's alleged breaches, and the jury declined to award them any disgorgement of defendant's compensation pursuant to New York's faithless servant doctrine. Therefore, the district court awarded the Yukos Group entities and Fleischman each $1 in nominal damages (for a total of $5). The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to David Godfrey, its non-imposition sanctions, and its decision to instruct the jury as it did regarding the standard for disgorgement of a faithless servant's compensation. However, the court concluded that Foundation 1 and Foundation 2 failed to prove breach of fiduciary duty claims against defendant. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of defendant's Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law as to them.