GC California, the premier magazine for in-house lawyers in California, polled more than 6,000 General Counsel and other in-house attorneys to identify their preferred outside counsel in California. When the results were tallied, Gordon & Rees received "1st Place" in the category of Commercial Litigation, as announced in the December issue of the publication.

The firm's Commercial Litigation trial lawyers have well-proven expertise in handling complex commercial disputes in federal and state courts, including appeals, in addition to the mediation and arbitration setting. Gordon & Rees has a national reputation for successfully resolving, managing and trying multi-party and complex claims (including class actions) involving business-to-business disputes, breach of commercial contracts (private and government), real estate, unfair trade practices, false advertising, securities, intellectual property, unfair competition, fraud, trade libel, lender liability, franchise law, directors and officers, and other business claims.

Recent examples of the firm's commercial litigation successes include:

• 15 Successful Oppositions to Class Certification Motions: During the past three years, Gordon & Rees' San Francisco Commercial Litigation practice group successfully defeated 12 consecutive class action certification motions in a wide range of industries, including education, pharmaceuticals, financial services, insurance and retail. In the first quarter of 2009, Gordon & Rees' Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego offices obtained three additional victories in dismissing class action certification motions. One involved a class action accusing an employer/client of mishandling paychecks in violation of the Labor Code, another involved alleged violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act relating to a restaurant/client’s printing of receipts for credit card transactions, and the third involved a class action filed against an automobile manufacturing company.
  
  
• $200 Million Case of First Impression: Defended one of the nation's largest automobile and homeowners insurance companies in a purported class action case with two precedent-setting results. First, the San Francisco Superior Court agreed to a bifurcated trial in which aspects of liability will be resolved before the Court addresses class certification. Second, the matter involved the first case in which the Court addressed whether the Truth In Lending Act (TILA) applies to an insurance installment payment plan. The Court ruled the client's premium finance plan did not constitute credit or deferred payment as defined by TILA and, consequently, the regulations of TILA did not apply. The Court rejected the plaintiff's request for disgorgement of an estimated $200 million in finance charges paid by insureds from 2004 to the present.
  
  
• Only U.S. Published Decision on UCC Warranty Against Third Party Infringement Claims: Obtained an appellate court victory that overturned a trial court order granting summary judgment in a breach of statutory warranty lawsuit. In this appeal, Gordon & Rees represented a California-based national clothing retailer alleging that a supplier breached the warranty contained in § 2312(3) of the California Uniform Commercial Code, which requires certain sellers to warrant that their goods are "free of the rightful claim of any third person by way of infringement or the like." In the only published decision in the U.S. on UCC warranty against infringement claims, the appellate court defined, for the first time under California law, that a rightful claim under § 2312(3) is a nonfrivolous claim of infringement that has any significant and adverse effect on the buyer's ability to make use of the purchased goods.
  
  
• Misappropriation of Trade Secrets: Defended a prominent Silicon Valley software company against a competitor's claim that a former employee misappropriated trade secrets and violated a non-competition agreement. Gordon & Rees successfully dissolved a court-approved temporary restraining order and obtained a complete and voluntary dismissal of the action after establishing that no misappropriation had occurred.
  
  
• Alleged Naked Short Selling Conspiracy: Successfully resolved a high-profile, bet-the-company lawsuit on behalf of the nation's leading independent equities research firm. The action, brought by a publicly traded consumer retail company, involved allegations of an industry-wide naked short selling conspiracy coupled with alleged attempts to depress the plaintiff/company's share price by disseminating false and defamatory information to Wall Street and the media.
  
  
• Breach of Multi-Million Dollar Software Development Contract: Achieved a multi-million dollar settlement on behalf of one of the largest higher-education systems in the U.S. as the plaintiff in a case involving the breach of a software development contract. All of the client's payments were returned and the vendor received no payments under the contract.