Crisis Management

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Crisis Management Group offers an essential resource in today’s complex legal environment.  The right response to a crisis — whether it is a whistleblower’s surprise allegation, a significant and unexpected accounting problem, a product recall, or a government investigation — requires a cohesive team equipped to take immediate action on multiple fronts.  Gibson Dunn’s Crisis Management Group is composed of skilled lawyers, including former prosecutors, judges, and government officials, with experience assisting clients facing major, company-threatening crises.  (A list can be found here.)  Our lawyers have demonstrated their effectiveness in dealing with all three branches of the federal government, state law enforcement and regulatory officials, and international regulators.  Members of this team also are experienced in developing and implementing prompt and effective media strategies to address any situation, and they frequently counsel executives and boards of directors in preparing for and avoiding crisis situations before they arise.  

Gibson Dunn’s lawyers are known for their ability to turn around crises and guide clients through difficult events.  The American Lawyer named Gibson Dunn to an unprecedented consecutive term as the 2012 Litigation Department of the Year in recognition of the firm’s “stack of victories of some of the country’s thorniest cases.”  The publication observed that Gibson Dunn’s extraordinary efforts on behalf of its clients extend beyond the courtroom: “Its litigators aren’t shy when it comes to engaging the media . . . . the firm’s media savvy is just one way these litigators distinguish themselves.”

The Crisis Management Group is led by Theodore B. Olson, former Solicitor General of the United States, former Assistant United States Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, and a confidant of two U.S. Presidents.  Members of the Crisis Management Group have experience in all manner of issues that can arise in a corporate crisis situation, including criminal law, complex civil litigation, media relations and media legal issues, securities and corporate governance, antitrust, environmental regulation, banking and currency, accounting, insurance,  international trade, employment disputes, homeland security, transportation, energy, immigration and border issues, and election law and ballot measures.  The group’s litigators can handle suits wherever they are filed—and, if necessary, all the way to the Supreme Court.  Gibson Dunn’s crisis management expertise also extends to congressional investigations, with a bipartisan team, including former members of Congress and former federal and high-ranking state officials, experienced in providing advice to the business community.

Some of our recent crisis management matters include:

• Transforming a high-risk toxic tort litigation against client Dole Food Company, Inc. into a headline-making victory.  In 2009, Gibson Dunn took over the defense of a series of cases filed against Dole alleging that its use of the pesticide DBCP in Nicaragua in the 1970s caused sterility in former farm workers.  Prior to Gibson Dunn’s representation, a Los Angeles jury had awarded $2.3 million in damages in Tellez v. Dole, and Dole faced more cases—Mejia v. Dole and Rivera v. Dole.  Working under tremendous time pressure, Gibson Dunn amassed evidence that the plaintiffs had been recruited by attorneys and coached to lie.  In April 2009, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney dismissed the test cases, finding a pervasive conspiracy to defraud both Nicaraguan and American courts.  After Gibson Dunn’s victory in California, the tide turned for Dole.  In Miami, the U.S. District Court refused to enforce a $97 million Nicaraguan judgment.  And the California court later threw out the Tellez verdict, which had been the only U.S. judgment ever entered against Dole in connection with DBCP litigation arising out of Nicaragua.  A front-page Wall Street Journal story in August 2010 highlighted Gibson Dunn’s representation.
• Securing a landmark ruling on one of the most important civil rights issues of the era—the constitutional right of gay and lesbian individuals to marry.  In May 2009, Gibson Dunn filed a federal challenge to California’s denial of marriage equality on behalf of two same-sex couples.  In August 2010, after a three-week trial on the merits, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco issued the decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, ruling for plaintiffs in the first federal case to consider whether gay men and lesbians are guaranteed the freedom to marry under the U.S. Constitution.  The New York Times described the ruling as an “instant landmark in American legal history” and “a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.”  Gibson Dunn continues to represent the plaintiffs in the pending appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
• Representing Goldman Sachs in widely covered congressional investigations and congressional hearings relating to the financial crisis and the related suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as representing several other clients in connection with the work of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
• Representing one of the world’s leading retailers in the appeal in the Dukes case, the largest class action in history.  After a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld certification of a class of more than 1.5 million plaintiffs, Gibson Dunn convinced the Ninth Circuit to grant a rare en banc rehearing.  In April 2010, the Ninth Circuit issued a 6-5 ruling that limits the class size but allows the case to proceed and leaves unanswered questions about punitive damages.  In August 2010, Gibson Dunn filed a petition asking the Supreme Court of the United States to review the decision on the grounds that it conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and the law in several circuits.
• Representing Facebook in an investigation by the New York Attorney General into online safety of underage visitors to the site.  Gibson Dunn attorneys moved quickly to craft a settlement under which Facebook agreed to issue sterner warnings to minors and revise its method for handling complaints.  At a nationally televised press conference, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Facebook’s chief privacy officer stood together to announce the settlement, which created a new model for the industry.
• Representing senior AIG executive Joe Cassano—unfairly demonized in the media as “Patient Zero” in the global financial crisis—in a federal criminal investigation relating to the government rescue of AIG.  After more than a year of meetings with and presentations by Gibson Dunn lawyers, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute.
• Representing Chevron Corp. in the massive, multi-pronged Lago Agrio environmental litigation.  In March 2010, the firm defeated a petition by the State of Ecuador to stay an international treaty arbitration that Chevron had just filed to have its claims decided in a neutral forum.  Seeking to uncover evidence of fraud on the part of the plaintiffs in the Ecuadorian litigation, Gibson Dunn has obtained discovery in the United States, including documentary film outtakes, where the Second Circuit ordered a filmmaker to turn over raw footage from “Crude,” a film about the litigation.  In discovery in Georgia, in a deposition conducted by Gibson Dunn, one of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses testified that documents attributed to him showing high levels of pollution at drill sites were falsified.  In September 2010, the Fifth Circuit upheld Chevron’s right to obtain allegedly privileged and otherwise confidential or protected communications between Plaintiffs’ U.S.-based environmental consultants and other agents and the Ecuadorian court’s purportedly neutral damages expert and his court-appointed team.