Emma Gilmore

Partner

Emma Gilmore is a Partner at Pomerantz and is regularly involved in high-profile class-action litigation. In 2021, Emma was awarded a spot on National Law Journal’s prestigious Elite Women of the Plaintiffs Bar list. In 2020, she was named by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation — an honor bestowed on only seven plaintiffs’ lawyers in the U.S. that year. The National Law Journal and the New York Law Journal honored her as a “Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Trailblazer.” Emma was honored by Law360 in 2018 as an MVP in Securities Litigation, part of an “elite slate of attorneys [who] have distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.” Only up to six attorneys nationwide are selected each year as MVPs in Securities Litigation. Emma is the first woman plaintiff attorney to receive this outstanding award since it was initiated in 2011. Emma has been honored since 2018 as a Super Lawyer®. She has been recognized by Lawdragon as one of the top 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers.

Emma is regularly invited to speak about recent trends and developments in securities litigation. She was recently selected to serve on the New York City Bar Association’s Securities Litigation Committee for a three-year term beginning on August 1, 2019. Emma regularly counsels clients around the world on how to maximize recoveries on their investments.

Emma played a leading role in the Firm’s class action case in the Southern District of New York against Brazil’s largest oil company, Petrobras, arising from a multi-billion-dollar kickback and bribery scheme, in which the Firm was sole Lead Counsel. In a significant victory for investors, Pomerantz achieved a historic $3 billion settlement with Petrobras. This is not only the largest securities class action settlement in a decade but is the largest settlement ever in a class action involving a foreign issuer, the fifth-largest class action settlement ever achieved in the United States, and the largest settlement achieved by a foreign lead plaintiff. The biggest instance of corruption in the history of Brazil had ensnared not only Petrobras' former executives but also Brazilian politicians, including former president Lula da Silva and one-third of the Brazilian Congress. Emma traveled to Brazil to uncover evidence of fraud and drafted the complaint. She deposed and defended numerous fact and expert witnesses, including deposing the former CEO of Petrobras, the whistleblower, and the chief accountant. She drafted the appellate brief, playing an instrumental role in securing a significant victory for investors in this case at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, when the Court rejected the heightened ascertainability requirement for obtaining class certification that had been imposed by other circuit courts. She opposed defendants' petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. Emma successfully obtained sanctions against a professional objector challenging the integrity of the settlement, both in the District Court and in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Emma organized a group of twenty-seven of the foremost U.S. scholars in the field of evidence and spearheaded the effort to submit an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on their behalf in a critical issue for investors.  One of the two pending issues before the High Court in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. et al v. Arkansas Teachers Retirement System, et al. (No. 20-222) squarely affects investors’ ability to pursue claims collectively as a class: whether, in order to rebut the presumption of reliance originated by the Court in the landmark Basic v. Levinson decision, defendants bear the burden of persuasion, or whether they bear only the much lower burden of production. The scholars argued that defendants carry the higher burden of persuasion. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Pomerantz and the scholars.

Emma leads the Firm’s class action litigation against Deutsche Bank and its executives, arising from the Bank’s improper anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer procedures, including the Bank’s servicing and lending practices to disgraced financier and multiple sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The District Court for the Southern District of New York sustained the majority of Plaintiffs’ claims.

Emma is Lead Counsel in the Firm's class action litigation against Arconic, arising from the deadliest U.K. fire in more than a century.

Emma played a leading role in Strougo v. Barclays PLC, a high-profile securities class action that alleged Barclays PLC misled institutional investor clients about the extent of the banking giant’s use of so-called “dark pool” trading systems. She drafted the complaint, defeated defendants’ efforts to dismiss the action, and contributed to securing an important precedent-setting opinion from the Second Circuit. Emma organized a group of leading evidence experts who filed amicus briefs supporting plaintiffs’ position in the Second Circuit.

Emma was Lead Counsel in the high-profile class action litigation against Yahoo! Inc., in which the Firm, as Lead Counsel, achieved an $80 million settlement for the Class. The case involved the biggest data breaches in U.S. history, in which over 3 billion Yahoo accounts were compromised.

Among other cases, Emma is part of the team prosecuting securities fraud claims against BP on behalf of many foreign and domestic public and private pension funds arising from the company's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In re BP p.l.c. Sec. Litig., No. 10-md-2185 (S.D. Tex.). She helped devise a cutting-edge strategy that established the right of individual foreign investors who purchased foreign-traded shares of a foreign corporation to pursue claims for securities fraud in a U.S. court, thereby overcoming obstacles created by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.

Emma secured a unanimous decision by a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, benefiting defrauded investors in Costa Brava Partnership III LP v. ChinaCast Education Corp. In an issue of first impression, the Ninth Circuit held that imputation of the CEO's scienter to the company was warranted vis-a-vis innocent third parties, despite the fact that the executive acted for his own benefit and to the company's detriment.

She has also devoted a significant amount of time to pro bono matters. She played a critical role in securing a unanimous ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court striking down as unconstitutional a state law banning cohabiting individuals from adopting children or serving as foster parents. The ruling was a relief for the 1,600-plus children in the state of Arkansas who needed a permanent family. The litigation generated significant publicity, including coverage by the Arkansas Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

Before joining Pomerantz, Emma was a litigation associate with the firms of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP, and Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP. She worked on the WorldCom Securities Litigation, which settled for $2 billion. 

She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas C. Platt, former U.S. Chief Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Emma graduated cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, where she served as a staff editor for the Brooklyn Law Review. She was the recipient of two CALI Excellence for the Future Awards, being the highest scoring student in the subjects of evidence and discovery. She graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University, with a BA in French and a minor in Business.

She serves on the Firm's Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Committee.

Brooklyn Law School