Thomas Dewey

Practice Areas

Tom Dewey is a leading commercial litigator with over 30 years of experience successfully handling high profile business litigation, regulatory investigations, and governance disputes. He is one of the few lawyers from smaller firms ranked by Chambers USA as a leading lawyer in General Commercial Litigation in New York. Tom has experience in a broad range of civil litigation matters, spanning companies in a wide variety of sectors. A significant part of his practice involves representing firms in financial services and real estate. He represents banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, and asset managers in the full spectrum of disputes that arise in those businesses, including securities, contract, and employment matters, as well as internal and regulatory investigations. He represents leading real estate firms in matters ranging from lease disputes to class actions, and won a jury verdict in a securities fraud class action challenging a real estate recapitalization. He is often retained by other lawyers and law firms.

Tom has extensive experience in commercial arbitration. He has successfully represented clients in AAA, JAMS, FINRA, ICC, LCIA, and ICSID arbitrations. Many of these matters involve international and cross-border clients and issues. In the past year, for example, Tom has been involved in matters involving a dozen jurisdictions outside the United States. Tom also works with directors, corporate boards, and board committees on governance matters, many involving “bet the company” issues. These matters sometimes arise from shareholder demands and related derivative or securities litigation, while others stem from government investigations or contests for control.

Tom also serves on the boards of several educational and philanthropic organizations in New York City.

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Career

Before co-founding DPK, Tom worked at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he litigated cases involving claims ranging from monopolization of technology markets to infringement of biotech patents, including several significant jury trials, a New York Stock Exchange arbitration, and an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration. Before law school, Tom worked as a foreign policy analyst in Washington, D.C.

Publications

Tom has a regular settlements and compromise column in the New York Law Journal, which focuses on disputes about settlement agreements. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Congressional Record, and he has been featured on CNN, Bloomberg, and Fox News.

Work Highlights

Recent matters Tom has handled include:

-Represented a committee of the Board of a Dow 30 company tasked to respond to a shareholder demand. Following the DPK investigation the shareholder dropped the matter.

-Represented a leading industrial firm whose prior counsel lost a summary judgment ruling on a $360 million damages claim. Tom took over the case and led a multi-year sequence of appeals that led to a complete victory for the client.

-Represented a prominent real estate firm in all litigation relating to its IPO and related transactions, including a consolidated securities class action seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, as well as other investor litigation. Tom defeated multiple efforts to stop the transaction.

-Represented a committee of the Board of a financial services company, investigating issues concerning the marketing and sale of complex financial products.

-Represented the former CEO of a European bank and conducted a jury trial on the CEO’s contract and tort claims, resulting in a favorable settlement before summations.

-Represented a prominent law firm partner in a multinational civil lawsuit involving tax collection.

-Represented a leading private equity firm and won summary judgment on an expedited basis on a $38 million claim for breach of a guarantee relating to a put option.

-Represented a global pharmaceutical company and significantly restricted the scope of claims against the firm, leading to resolution of the matter.

-Represented a senior executive of a public company during a wide-ranging SEC investigation and persuaded the SEC not to pursue any charges against the executive.

Expert in these Jurisdictions

New York

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

United States District Court for the Northern District of New York

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Education