With ‘top tier legal talent’ throughout its New York and Washington DC offices in particular, including former US government prosecutors and regulators, A&O Shearman is well-positioned to defend corporates, boards of directors, special committees, and individuals in their most pressing private class actions as well as in government-initiated investigations/enforcements. The financial services sector remains a particularly fecund source of work, including as it relates to market manipulation and rate-fixing cases, as well as in the defense of banks for alleged securities-related infractions in their role as underwriters on public company offerings. Adam Hakki remains central to much of this, leveraging deeply engrained relationships with many of Wall Street’s finest to good effect. In addition, Hakki maintains a thriving public company practice, both in the context of Securities Act cases, as well as on shareholder derivatives and M&A litigation. Daniel Lewis and Agnès Dunogué are also very well-versed at handling securities cases for large financial institutions, while Washington DC-based partner Lyle Roberts excels at handling securities-related investigations and enforcement actions before the SEC. In San Francisco, the ’responsive, focused, strategic and experienced’ Daniel LaGuardia is well-regarded by clients from across a range of industries, including technology, for his skill at handling securities litigation matters, and his prowess at advising on corporate governance-related matters as well as for his overarching commercial litigation smarts. All named practitioners are based out of New York, unless otherwise indicated.
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Litigation

Position

Partner

Career

Agnès is Co-Head of US Securities & Shareholder Litigation. She focuses on securities litigation, as well as complex commercial litigation and appellate litigation, and investigations.

Agnès has represented investment banks, other companies, and directors and officers in numerous securities matters in state and federal courts. She has represented companies in investigations by DOJ, the SEC, the CFTC, bank regulatory, state regulatory, FINRA, and other authorities. Her practice also includes representing clients in antitrust litigation and advising clients in the context of mergers and acquisitions.

Agnès is a former law clerk to Judge Robert D. Sack, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Kimba M. Wood, on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'The team consists of top tier legal talent.'
  • 'Daniel LaGuardia is responsive, focused, strategic and experienced. He is quite simply the best legal mind I have had the opportunity to work with to date.'

Key clients

  • Paramount Global
  • Cowen and Company
  • Uber Technologies, Inc.
  • Jefferies LLC
  • electroCore, Inc.
  • Tyler Technologies, Inc.
  • The Toronto-Dominion Bank
  • PayPal Holdings, Inc.
  • Hawaiian Electric Company
  • Silicon Valley Bank
  • Toyota Motor Corporation
  • Opendoor Technologies
  • Pattern Energy Group
  • Lumen Technologies, Inc.
  • Altice USA
  • Sea Limited
  • Bank of America
  • BNP Paribas
  • SAP SE
  • SSR Mining
  • Scratch Services, LLC
  • The Honest Company
  • Digital River, Inc.
  • Cencora Inc.
  • Apache Corporation
  • Baker Hughes Inc.
  • Beneficient
  • BlockFi Inc.
  • Bookend Capital Partners
  • Microvast Holdings, Inc.
  • JPMorgan
  • Morgan Stanley
  • UBS Securities
  • Ardagh Metal Packaging

Work highlights

Prevailed on behalf of SAP SE and SAP America Inc. in a fiduciary duty action filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery challenging the $12.5bn sale of Qualtrics International, Inc., a software company majority owned and controlled by SAP, to funds affiliated with Silver Lake Group.
Achieved a significant victory for Opendoor in a shareholder derivative case filed in Arizona federal court.
Obtained a litigation victory for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, in a putative securities class action in the Southern District of New York related to their role as underwriters to the IPO of Centessa Pharmaceuticals PLC.
L500 | A&O Shearman > Securities litigation: defense > United States | Legal 500 law firm profiles