Amanda Bonn

Practice Areas

Antitrust, Appellate, Complex Technology & IP, Insurance, Complex Commercial Disputes, Media & Entertainment, Labor & Employment

Work Highlights

Antitrust

The People of the State of California v. Vitol Inc. et al.; In re Cal. Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litig. Serving as co-lead counsel for Vitol Inc.—the world’s largest independent energy trading company—in related antitrust cases filed by the California Attorney General and class action law firms. Both cases allege that Vitol conspired to manipulate “spot market” gasoline prices between 2014 and 2016, allegedly elevating retail gasoline prices in California in violation of California’s Cartwright Act.

Appellate

Universal Cable Productions LLC et al. v. Atlantic Specialty Insurance Co. Hired by NBCUniversal to turn things around after its subsidiary, UCP, lost a major insurance dispute with Atlantic Specialty Insurance Co., Bonn obtained a total reversal in the Ninth Circuit in a widely-publicized decision about whether acts of terrorism fall within the standard “War Exclusions” common to many insurance policies. (Universal Cable Prods., LLC, et al. v. Atlantic Specialty Ins. Co., 929 F.3d 1143. On remand, the district court found in UCP’s favor on liability and set a trial solely on the issues of damages and Atlantic’s bad faith. The case settled for a confidential amount the night before a trial in which Bonn was slated to deliver closing arguments,

Oliver et al. v. SD-3C LLC, SanDisk, Panasonic, & Toshiba. Successfully briefed and argued a Ninth Circuit appeal in this groundbreaking case at the intersection of patent and antitrust law, asserting antitrust claims arising from Defendants’ patent licensing arrangements relating to SD Card technology.

Complex Technology and Intellectual Property

Brown et al. v. Google, LLC. Serves as co-lead counsel to Plaintiffs in this groundbreaking privacy case against Google over allegations that Google secretly collects users’ internet browsing information even when they are in “Incognito” mode, in violation of the federal Wiretap Act and various California state laws. Bonn made nationwide news for her argument before Judge Lucy H. Koh on Google’s motion to dismiss when she told the Court that while Google makes it seem like private browsing mode gives users more control of their data, “Google is saying there’s basically very little you can do to prevent us from collecting your data, and that’s what you should assume we’re doing.” The Court subsequently denied Google’s motion in its entirety in a landmark privacy decision.

Rodriguez et al. v. Google, LLC. Serves as co-lead counsel for a putative class of plaintiffs who allege that Google continues to collect users’ Internet and application activity even when users turn Google’s “Web & App Activity” button off. Bonn argued Plaintiffs’ opposition to Google’s motion to dismiss before Judge Seeborg who issued a significant order keeping Plaintiffs’ case alive, finding that Google’s “public-facing statements” on privacy “are legitimately confusing,” “[t]he average internet user is not a full-stack engineer; he or she should not be treated as one,” and “it is not the public’s fault for being confused….”

Preservation Technology v. MindGeek. Served as part of the Susman Godfrey team pursuing a portfolio of patents developed at the USC Shoah Foundation to catalog videos of Holocaust survivors against MindGeek and its affiliated porn sites for infringement. The case settled on confidential terms.

Positron Systems, Inc. v. Wyle Labs., Inc. Served as co-lead trial counsel defending Wyle Laboratories, a subsidiary of American engineering, procurement, and construction company, KBR, in this trade secret case concerning X-ray technology used to detect corrosion on aircraft. At trial, Bonn delivered the opening statement, cross-examined the plaintiff’s sole technical expert, and cross-examined the plaintiff’s CEO and Chairman of the Board. While the plaintiff had been seeking tens of millions of dollars, the jury delivered a defense verdict on the trade secret claim and rejected nearly all of plaintiff’s claimed damages. The plaintiff was awarded approximately $250,000 by the jury on ancillary claims—which the Court then reduced to $68,000 based on Susman Godfrey’s post-trial motions.

Peak Web v. Machine Zone. Prosecuted Peak Web Litigation Trust’s $100+ million claim against Machine Zone for breach of contract, fraud and theft of trade secrets in state court in San Jose, CA. The case was settled shortly before trial for a confidential amount.

Rockstar v. Google. Represented a joint venture of Apple, Ericsson, Sony, and Blackberry in this massive patent dispute concerning Google’s core “search-plus-advertising” business. Bonn defended the patent inventor’s deposition, briefed and argued claim construction issues, and argued key discovery motions that resulted in significant wins in the weeks preceding the parties’ post-Markman resolution as part of a $900 million settlement.

ViaSat v. Space Systems/Loral et al. (SSL). Played a significant role from filing through a jury verdict and post-trial motions in this high-stakes patent litigation, with over $1 billion in potential exposure. Bonn briefed and argued motions to dismiss, claim construction, motions for summary judgment, and post-trial motions. She also oversaw all technical expert work on infringement and invalidity; took and defended significant depositions, and examined key witnesses at trial, including the second-highest-ranking executive at Loral, Loral’s invalidity expert, and a key third-party witness.

Complex Commercial Disputes

FSG Services Inc. v. Flutter Entertainment. Secured a favorable award for Flutter Entertainment when an arbitrator in New York nearly doubled the exercise price its opponent, FOX Corporation, sought for its option to acquire 18.6% of Flutter’s portfolio company, FanDuel Group. This high stakes, high profile arbitration resulted from FOX’s assertion that it should be entitled to the same price Flutter paid for its share of FanDuel two years before the arbitration took place – $2.1 billion, with an implied company valuation of $11.2 billion. The arbitrator, however, found that FOX’s payment must be based on a substantially higher FanDuel valuation of $20 billion it was hoping for, plus an additional 5% interest per year. At the time of the decision, this equated to a valuation for FanDuel of $22 billion and an option exercise price of $4.1 billion for FOX — nearly twice the amount that FOX argued it should be required to pay. The arbitrator also rejected FOX’s claim that Flutter had not provided commercially reasonable resources to the Fox Bet business.

State of California, et al., On The Go Wireless, LLC, v. Cellco Partnership, et al. Served as Susman Godfrey’s lead California trial counsel representing the largest political subdivisions in the largest state in the nation—including the University of California system, the California State University System, and the County of Los Angeles, to name a few—in this groundbreaking suit against Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint for over-billing the government. Bonn helped secure settlements with all defendants collectively valued at $175 million, which have been paid to hundreds of California and Nevada government entities. These record-setting settlements are the largest of their kind in California.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and Crum & Forster Holdings Corp. v. S.A.C. Capital Management, LLC, et al. Defended Third Point LLC against this civil RICO securities case seeking over $10 billion in damages. Bonn deposed the plaintiff’s experts, including the former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, successfully drafted trial and appellate briefs that resulted in piercing the plaintiff’s privilege log, and contributed to securing dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims against Third Point in their entirety on summary judgment.

Labor & Employment

Various employment matters for Zillow—Kremer v. Zillow, Boehler et al. v. Zillow, Young v. Zillow, Johnson v. Zillow, and Freeman v. Zillow. Defended Zillow against a wage-and-hour class action, a Department of Labor investigation, and a series of high-profile individual employment lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, gender discrimination, race discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination—all of which were filed simultaneously by celebrity lawyer

Mark Geragos and one of which was covered on the front page of the New York Times.

Various employment matters for Dean Foods subsidiaries— Parker v. Dean Transportation, Inc., de la Cueva v. Alta-Dena, and Perez v. Alta-Dena. Successfully litigated a series of putative wage-and-hour class actions against several subsidiaries of Dean Foods, one of the nation’s leading food and beverage companies, defeating more than six attempts to certify putative classes bringing wage-and-hour claims.

Deitelbaum v. Rawlings. Represented The Rawlings Co., one of the nation’s leading subrogation recovery firms, in a mis-classification case in Central District of California. Bonn successfully briefed motions to dismiss, resulting in dismissal of Plaintiffs’ California PAGA claims on behalf of other employees, as well as the plaintiff’s meal and rest break claims. Bonn’s work transformed this case seeking to represent a class of Rawlings’ employees asserting overtime, meal break, and rest break claims to a single-Plaintiff case involving only overtime claims. The case settled on confidential terms.

Industry Sector Expertise

Bonn’s unique ability to master diverse subject matters has allowed her to successfully represent both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of practice areas including antitrust, appellate, class action, employment, intellectual property, privacy, qui tam, and securities litigation. Bonn’s versatility is evident in her wide-ranging practice in cases with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars at stake.

Experience

Law Clerk to the Honorable Dean D. Pregerson, United States District Court for the Central District of California (2009-2010)

Education

Awards