First up are Emil Kleinhaus of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, who represented Mitel Networks, and Elliot Moskowitz of Davis Polk & Wardwell, who represented lenders who participated in the Canadian telecommunication company’s 2022 out-of-court debt restructuring via a so-called “liability management” or “uptier” transaction—a type of deal dubbed by detractors as “lender-on-lender violence.” After Kleinhaus and Moskowitz handled arguments at New York’s Appellate Division, First Department in October, the court handed their clients a win on New Year’s Eve. The appellate court upheld the dismissal of certain breach-of-implied-covenant claims brought by minority lenders that did not participate in the deal. It also reversed the lower court by dismissing the plaintiff’s express contract claims outright. A team at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe led by Richard Jacobsen represented Credit Suisse, which acted as agent for the lenders in the underlying deal, and a team at Latham & Watkins led by Christopher Harris represented Searchlight Capital Partners, Mitel’s equity owner. Last week’s decision also upheld the dismissal of tortious interference claims against their clients. The Wachtell team on the matter for Mitel included Michael Cassel, Mitchell Levy, Lauren Kofke and Kate Waldock. The Davis Polk team representing the participating lenders also included counsel Marc Tobak and associate Adam Greene.

Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson, Catherine Nyarady of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Jack Blumenfeld of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell secured a key trial win last month for Qualcomm in litigation brought by British chip design company Arm Ltd. Federal jurors in Delaware found that Qualcomm’s central processing units were properly licensed under an agreement with Arm. Jurors also found Qualcomm hadn’t breached an architecture license agreement that Nuvia—a startup Qualcomm bought in 2021—had with Arm. Jurors, however, couldn’t come to a verdict on Arm’s claims that Nuvia breached the license. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika declared a mistrial on that question and encouraged the parties to mediate their dispute. The trial team also included Paul Weiss partners Erin Morgan, Melissa Zappala, William Marks and Michael Holston, counsel Conrad Scott, associates Jacob Apkon, Adam Basner, Jake Braly, Alexander Butwin, Stephanie Chin, Ruby Garrett, Kimberly Grambo, Anna Lipin, Flint Patterson, Nav Pillai and Candice Yandam, as well as Morris Nichols litigation partner Jennifer Ying and Richard Zembek, Darren Smith and John Poulos of Norton Rose Fulbright.