Jennifer Pafiti

Brazil's energy giant, Petrobras, is accused of a massive, decades-long kickback scheme involving billions of dollars in losses and some of the nation's top political leaders, reaching even to the office of the nation's president. It's a case that has gotten the attention of major law firms around the world.

Pafiti is co-lead counsel, with others at the firm, in a group of consolidated class actions on behalf of injured institutional investors at a large private pension fund in Britain.

Though Pomerantz did not represent the plaintiff with the largest loss, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York appointed it to lead the representative class after successful arguments by Pafiti's team.

"Most institutions that invested in Brazil will be impacted" by the Petrobras scandal, Pafiti said. "We were competing [for lead counsel] with a group that lost up to $250 million. Our client's loss was $84 million, so we were the underdog."

Pafiti and colleagues contended that Pomerantz should be chosen because its client was an individual institution - not a group of investors. And as a pension fund for teachers, it was a model of good corporate governance policies. Rakoff cited those factors in awarding lead counsel status to Pomerantz, she said.

In July 2015, Rakoff denied most of Petrobras' motions to dismiss. In February, he granted class certification. The case is now scheduled for trial in September.

"That's a short timeline for us to settle or proceed," Pafiti said. "The fraud was titanic in magnitude. Most of Petrobras' executives are in prison, or out by now if they pleaded guilty. If there were settlement talks, I couldn't tell you." In re Petrobras Securities Litigation, 14-cv-9662 (S.D. N.Y., filed Dec. 12, 2014)

In another major case, Pafiti is part of the lead trial team representing nearly three dozen U.S. and foreign institutions that suffered large losses in the wake of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She and the team are helping shape securities law by having won an important victory for investors in foreign-traded securities.

Despite guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd. in 2010 that appeared to bar recovery in U.S. courts for investors who purchased shares on a non-U.S. exchange, Pafiti's team twice defeated defense motions to dismiss her foreign clients as plaintiffs.

"We brought claims under different bodies of law," she said, "including the common law, and we believe the judge was disturbed that those who bought shares on a U.S. exchange have been compensated, while those who bought shares on a London exchange have not. The losses are in the multiple tens of millions. We are proceeding in discovery." In re: BP Plc Securities Litigation, 10-md-2185 (S.D. Tex., filed Sept. 14, 2012)

- John Roemer