Robert A. Sacks

Robert A. Sacks describes his practice as “high-stakes litigation” across a broad spectrum of business matters. “I’ve done things from antitrust to securities to whatever the hell you want to call Silicon Valley Bank,” he said.

He has represented corporate directors and beer companies. A dozen years ago, he represented Frank McCourt, “the man L.A. loves to hate,” when McCourt sold the L.A. Dodgers for $2 billion.

“I also represented him both in dealing with the commissioner’s office and the like, but also when his ex-wife sued him” for a larger share of the team’s sales price. She lost, Sacks said.

Currently, he is representing L.A.-based CIM Group in a dispute with New York real estate mogul Harry Macklowe over the luxury high-rise at 432 Park Ave, where Macklowe bought three apartments for $48 million. “It’s a complicated, tripart dispute at the moment” spread among state court, bankruptcy court and arbitration, Sacks said.

Although he is based in Sullivan & Cromwell’s L.A. office, a majority of his cases are outside Southern California.

He is representing Stifel Financial Corp., a large investment bank and financial services company headquartered in St. Louis, in investigations by the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission over alleged recordkeeping violations and what the SEC called “pervasive off-channel communications.”

In one large array of litigation, he represents J.P. Morgan in lawsuits spawned by some of its precious metals traders engaging in “spoofing.” That when traders place buy or sell market orders and then cancel them before they’re fulfilled as a way to manipulate the market, Sacks said. Two of the traders were sentenced to prison.

He has defended J.P. Morgan against class actions from shareholders and from other traders cheated by the manipulation and as well as derivative actions by shareholders upset that the bank had to pay “very significant” fines.

Separately, Sacks is defending Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp, in a derivative action targeting former and current Facebook/Meta directors over the social media company having not prevented Cambridge Analytica from collecting personal data about millions of Facebook users. Feuer v. Zuckerberg, 2019-0324 (Del. Ch. Ct., filed May 1, 2019).

Then, there’s litigation flowing from the federal takeover of Silicon Valley Bank. “We represent the debtors, and I’m the lead litigator trying to collect $1.93 billion from the FDIC, which refuses to pay it,” Sacks said. When the bank collapsed, the secretary of the Treasury and others promised the FDIC would insure all deposits fully. But then, he said, they changed their mind. The litigation includes two separate FDIC receiverships, as well.

“It’s a complicated mess,” he said.

— Don DeBenedictis