Accolades

Daily Journal “Top 100 Lawyers in California”

September 10, 2014

William Sullivan and Thomas Brown were named to the Daily Journal’s “Top 100 California Lawyers of 2014,” which profiled leading California-based lawyers for their innovative legal strategies.  Securities Litigation partner and Chair of the Los Angeles Litigation Department William Sullivan was recognized for his groundbreaking victory on behalf of Jacobs Engineering in the first appellate decision on Dodd-Frank’s “Say on Pay” provision. The decision clarified the precedence of the company board’s use of business judgment in determining executive compensation. “Importantly, the court ruled that the ‘Say on Pay’ vote was only advisory, and did not supersede the business judgment presumption afforded a company’s board of directors,” Sullivan noted to the Daily Journal.

The Daily Journal also recognized Global Banking and Payment Systems partner Thomas Brown’s duo of victories for eBay subsidiaries Bill Me Later and Stubhub. The article highlighted the creative approach taken in Bill Me Later’s class action case around California law capping interest rates – which consisted of successfully having the case transferred from Southern California to Utah, leading directly to the case’s dismissal. The piece also outlined the importance for every company utilizing e-commerce throughout California of the dismissal of a class action against Stubhub for allegedly violating the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, which prohibits merchants from requesting a customer’s personal information. “Extending Song-Beverly to e-commerce would undermine the efforts of merchants to protect consumers and themselves from credit card fraud,” Brown told the Daily Journal.