Mr Richard Horvath > Dechert LLP > San Francisco, United States > Lawyer Profile

Dechert LLP‘s litigators are often tasked with defending private equity funds and their directors in shareholder actions arising out of mergers, governance decisions and alleged breaches of fiduciary duties, tackling cases in state and federal courts, including the Delaware Court of Chancery. Joni Jacobsen, who spearheads the firm’s securities litigation group, represents listed companies and their directors in class actions and derivative disputes, and in 2024 defended PureCycle Technologies against a demand to inspect books and records in Delaware and a securities fraud allegation arising out of a de-SPAC transaction, which settled in October. Neil Steiner defended a special committee of Harvest Capital Credit Corporation’s board, against shareholder allegations that directors had breached their fiduciary duties in Harvest Capital’s merger with Portman Ridge Finance Corporation, while San Francisco’s Richard Horvath represented Barcoding, Inc. in a shareholder claim alleging its directors had made material misstatements in advance of its now-closed merger with DecisionPoint Systems. Unless otherwise specified, named lawyers are New York-based.

With a strong presence on both coasts, Dechert LLP has the strength-in-depth to handle a significant range and volume of complex private securities class actions and derivative shareholder actions. Team head Joni Jacobsen is often at the forefront of the most significant securities disputes for publicly-traded companies from a myriad sectors, frequently successfully guiding them through multipronged private litigation class actions, and associated regulatory investigations/enforcement actions. Angela Liu is a skilled practitioner in securities fraud litigation class actions for US and China-based companies, work which she also combines with a broader skill set which encompasses corporate governance and M&A litigation. Drawing upon the firm’s broader institutional knowledge of the asset management industry, many in the team are well-versed at defending private equity (and their portfolio companies), hedge funds and investment advisers against securities fraud allegations. In this regard, David Kotler recently defended an investment adviser against allegations of breaching their fiduciary duties following a decline in the price of a mutual fund it was managing. Corporate governance litigation partner Richard Horvath and securities/antitrust partner Josh Hess are the key contacts in San Francisco. All practitioners are located in New York unless otherwise indicated. David Kistenbroker recently retired.