Stephen Kranz said, “We’ve seen over the past few years a whittling away of the protection offered the states” by the Tax Injunction Act, creating “an opening now for taxpayers to bring … disputes to federal court that don’t involve the assessment levy or collection.” Diann Smith questioned “to what extent are penalties on a tax prohibited by the Act,” asking if, “by defining penalties, can a state successfully include them in the prohibition on jurisdiction on the Act?”

David Hanselman Jr., Chelsea Black, Raymond Jacobsen Jr. and Nicole Castle continue to defend gypsum drywall makers, along with lawyers from four other firms, against indirect drywall purchaser allegations of price fixing.

Ten McDermott partners were noted in this roundup of the Firm’s recent “hiring spree:”
– Robert Cordy, (trial, Boston)
– Robert Goldstein and Frank Steinherr (private equity) and Daniel Martin (real estate finance), New York
– Rebecca Martin (trial, New York)
– Steven Eckhaus, and Evan Belosa (compensation and benefits, New York)
– Mark Schreiber (privacy and cybersecurity, Boston)
– En-Jiun Enrica Ma (tax, Washington DC)
– Hamid Yunis (health, London)

Matthias Kampshoff led McDermott’s work with Barnet Europe on the sale of its polymer business to Albis Plastic GmbH, as part of establishing a joint venture. Other lawyers involved from the Düsseldorf office were Marc Oberhardt, Thiemo Schäfer, Nina Siewert and Sandra Urban-Crell. Read the full article.

Stephen Kranz, Diann Smith, and Mark Yopp were cited as authors of a blog post which contended that a new congressional bill on hybrid origin-sourcing for remote sales taxes “is sure to generate additional discussion on the issue.” The authors also noted that “it will be interesting to see what progress is made on this issue before the presidential election in November.”

Diann Smith, Stephen Kranz and Eric Carstens were authors of a legal analysis, cited by this blog, regarding a Delaware district court’s potential landmark unclaimed property audit-related memorandum opinion in a case against the state.

Matthias Kampshoff, who is familiar with troubled company transactions, led McDermott’s work for Signa Retail (a unit of Austria’s Karstadt) to purchase insolvent online portal Dress-for-Less. Other McDermott lawyers on the deal were Marc Oberhardt, Ulrike Witt, Sandra Urban-Crell, Anja Zelfel, Claus Färber and Anna Steudner.

Matthias Kampshoff led a joint Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich team that advised Signa Retail throughout the process for its purchase of online portal Dress-for-Success out of bankruptcy. Other team members were Marc Oberhardt, Ulrike Witt, Sandra Urban-Crell, Anja Zelfel, Claus Färber and Anna Steudner.

Russell Hayman and a team that included Sarah Chapin Columbia, Jon Dean, Rita Yoon, Leigh Martinson, Casey Campbell, Hasan Rashid and Tala Jayadevan won a Texas federal court jury’s verdict of non-infringement for client BlackBerry regarding a pager patent. The plaintiff had sought $47.9 million in royalties, but the jury agreed that the patent technology was irrelevant to the Blackberry system.

Russell Hayman told a Texas federal jury that a pager patent for which Blackberry is being sued for infringing is worth far less than the damages the plaintiff is seeking because Blackberry’s technology, which works “pretty much the opposite,” has made the patent in question “irrelevant.” Also on the McDermott trial team from Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago are Sarah Chapin Columbia, Jon Dean, Leigh Martinson, Tala Jayadevan and Rita Yoon.