Eric Akira Tate 

As the co-chair of his firm’s global employment and labor group, Eric Akira Tate is often called upon when major companies have disagreements or problems with their top executives.

Of course, he can’t discuss those matters in any detail. “If we do our job right, then it just looks like somebody resigned,” Tate said.

In what he said would probably be “the biggest executive dispute I ever work on,” Tate recently guided a multinational investment holding company in a multibillion-dollar dispute with a high-profile senior executive. He advised the company on all aspects of the complex and sensitive departure, including tactical decisions and negotiations.

Tate also advised a global life sciences and medical device company headquartered in Asia when it let dozens of senior U.S. executives go as part of reorganizing its management while retaining the Asian senior executives. He then led a team that defended the company against national origin discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and related claims. It took nearly a year, but he and the MoFo team resolved all of the claims without litigation or publicity.

In another complicated and sensitive matter, he advised the board of directors of an international information technology company in its discipline of C-level executives related to a potential multimillion-dollar kickback fraud scheme. The board eventually terminated two C-level executives in the U.S. based on information the MoFo team collected during its investigation.

Then, Tate’s team defended the company against the terminated executives’ wrongful termination claims, which sought more than $10 million in lost pension and severance benefits. Those matters ultimately resolved late last year and early this year, he said.

In a case he can discuss, Tate is representing Britain’s Naked Wines against a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by the former president of its U.S. business. Following some vigorous motion practice, Tate was able to move the lawsuit to arbitration, which is ongoing. Miller v. Nakedwines.com, 4:22-cv-03900 (N.D. Cal., filed July 1, 2022)

That case involves events and witnesses on three continents. Like many of his matters, it demonstrates what he described as “an international bent” to his practice. “I litigate as much outside California as in.”

Tate was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. with his family as a young child. He speaks Japanese and handles many matters for clients there, he said.

He also handles many trade secrets and high-level employee mobility disputes. In fact, he co-chairs an American Bar Association subcommittee on covenants not to compete and trade secrets within the association’s labor and employment Law section.

Tate also counsels international and local companies about such matters. “I’ve helped a number of companies in Silicon Valley and Japan with their trade secrets policies and practices for onboarding and offboarding employees from competitors,” he said.

— Don DeBenedictis