Pomerantz LLP, US

Managing Partner: Jeremy A. Lieberman

Number of partners: 17

Offices: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tel Aviv

Since its founding by Abe Pomerantz, the “dean of the class action bar,” in 1936, Pomerantz LLP (“Pomerantz” or the “Firm”) has vigorously championed investors’ rights while achieving record-setting settlements and shaping the law.

Pomerantz attorneys are consistently praised by the courts. In approving the $3 billion Petrobras settlement achieved by the firm, Judge S. Jed Rakoff stated: “The lawyers in this case are some of the best lawyers in the United States, if not in the world.” That settlement, reached in 2018, still stands as the largest securities class action settlement in over a decade, the largest securities class action settlement ever involving a foreign issuer, the largest securities settlement ever achieved by a foreign lead plaintiff, the largest securities settlement ever not involving a restatement of financial reports, and the fifth-largest securities settlement ever achieved in the United States.

Jeremy A. Lieberman, the firm’s managing partner, is widely recognized as a leader of the securities class action bar. He has been honored as a Leading Lawyer by The Legal 500 and a Distinguished Leader by the New York Law Journal. In 2021 and 2022, he was selected as one of Lawdragon’s Leading 500 Lawyers in the United States and one of Super Lawyers® Top 100 Lawyers in metro New York. Jeremy was Benchmark Litigation’s 2019 Plaintiff Attorney of the Year. In 2018, he was named a Titan of the Plaintiffs Bar by Law360 and a Benchmark Litigation Star.

Pomerantz represents some of the most influential pension funds, asset managers, and institutional investors around the globe, monitoring assets of over $9 trillion, and growing. PomTrack®, the Firm’s proprietary portfolio monitoring service headed by Partner Jennifer Pafiti, is supported by the latest technology and a dedicated team of attorneys, forensic economists, damages analysts, paralegals, and professional staff. PomTrack® monitors a fund’s investments and cross-references its trading data against current and potential securities class action claims worldwide. This allows the Firm’s attorneys to alert fiduciaries when assets they oversee suffer significant losses due to financial misconduct, allowing them to make informed, timely decisions on how best to maximize a recovery.

Beyond expanding global investors’ rights in ground-breaking securities litigation in the United States, Pomerantz represents clients in various jurisdictions outside the United States. Partnering with international attorneys, Pomerantz currently represents institutional investors in cases against, among others, Airbus SE (the Netherlands), Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (Italy), BRF S.A. (Brazil), ING Groep N.V. (the Netherlands), Koninklijke Philips NV (the Netherlands), and Wirecard AG (Germany).

Pomerantz was honored in 2020 by European Pensions with its inaugural Thought Leadership award in recognition of significant contributions the Firm has made in the European pension environment.

Main Areas of Practice

Securities Litigation

Advancing the interests of its clients irrespective of where they trade securities, Pomerantz has secured ground-breaking legal decisions that have greatly expanded global investors’ rights.

The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank disrupted decades of legal precedent by barring use of U.S. federal securities law to recover losses from investments in foreign-traded securities.

Pomerantz’s litigation against BP plc was the first ever successful workaround of the roadblocks imposed by Morrison. The Firm filed lawsuits on behalf of dozens of institutional investors from around the world seeking to recover losses in BP’s London-traded common stock stemming from its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. With historic decisions secured throughout the litigation, the Firm paved the way for investors, both foreign and domestic, to pursue foreign law claims against a foreign company, seeking recovery for foreign-traded shares, in U.S. courts. In early 2021, Pomerantz resolved the lawsuits for a confidential, favorable monetary settlement.

Morrison also had consequences for investors of dual-listed shares. Investors that purchased on a U.S. exchange could join with other similarly situated investors to collectively seek compensation in a U.S. class action. Investors purchasing shares in the same company on a foreign exchange, however, were generally left to pursue claims individually in a foreign court likely to be less familiar with and less favorable to securities fraud litigation than those in the U.S. Pomerantz has convinced several courts to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over foreign purchaser claims and achieved the first certification of a foreign purchaser class since Morrison in a U.S. district court.

In 2023, Pomerantz secured final approval of a securities class action against Deutsche Bank AG in which the Firm alleged that the Bank failed to adhere to its own due diligence protocols. During the Class period, the defendants repeatedly exempted high net-worth individuals and politically exposed persons from any meaningful due diligence, further enabling their crimes through the use of the Bank’s facilities.For example, Deutsche Bank took on Jeffrey Epstein as a client, despite his previous convictions for and new allegations of child sex trafficking and abuse.

Pomerantz’s Securities Litigation team is currently litigating high-profile actions against, among others, Amazon.com, Perrigo Company plc, and Wynn Resorts Ltd.

Corporate Governance/ESG Litigation

Pomerantz is committed to ensuring that companies practice good corporate citizenship. The firm’s corporate governance team, led by Partner Gustavo F. Bruckner, enforces shareholder rights and prosecutes actions challenging corporate transactions that arise from an unfair process or result in an unfair price for shareholders. ESG derivative litigation is brought by shareholders against senior officers of a corporation for the benefit of the corporation, seeking to compel change in corporate governance. Pomerantz has secured important governance reforms in numerous public and confidential actions. For example, after reports of sexual harassment at a major entertainment company, Pomerantz sent a litigation demand and negotiated the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Group; complete retraining of all U.S. employees; and mandatory reporting of harassment to senior officers.

Strategic Consumer Litigation

Pomerantz’s strategic consumer litigation team, led by partner Jordan L. Lurie, represents consumers in actions that seek to recover monetary and injunctive relief on behalf of class members while also advocating for important consumer rights. The team is currently in litigation that challenges the failure of the automotive industry to abide by California’s emissions warranty law – at the expense of millions of consumers who have spent thousands of dollars on repairs that should have been covered under warranty. Pomerantz has initiated actions in state and federal courts against major automakers, seeking to recover all costs wrongfully incurred for repairs to emissions-related vehicle components. These actions are also intended to promote California’s significant interest in curbing emissions, thereby protecting the environment and public health.

Antitrust Litigation

Pomerantz has earned a reputation for prosecuting complex antitrust and consumer class actions with vigor, innovation, and success. Pomerantz’s antitrust team has recovered billions of dollars for the Firm’s business and individual clients and the classes that they represent. Time and again, Pomerantz has protected our free-market system from anticompetitive conduct such as price fixing, monopolization, exclusive territorial division, pernicious pharmaceutical conduct, and false advertising. From fighting antitrust behavior by NASDAQ market-makers to challenging artificially inflated prescription drug prices and scoring victories over Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League on behalf of fans over geographic blackouts, Pomerantz’s cases illustrate the expertise and commitment that the firm’s antitrust practice group devotes to prosecuting anticompetitive conduct, no matter where it is found.