Kenneth E. McNeil

Other Results in 2004-06

• 2006 Selected to Special Counsel list for the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System.
• 2004 Retained as special settlement counsel for the City of San Diego in a dispute with its auditing firm.
• 2004 Selected to Special Counsel list for State Retirement System of Maryland.

Other Results in 2000-2004

Served as lead trial lawyer for a joint prosecution group — the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (for a shareholder class), the Anicom bankruptcy estate, and several Chicago banks.

• $21.5 million settlement from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
• $18.0 million settlement from certain officers and directors of Anicom, Inc.
• $40 million in total settlements were obtained in federal court in Chicago involving now-bankrupt wire distributor Anicom, Inc.
• Two directors paid $12 million out of their own pockets, not from D&O insurer.

Obtained first-ever U.S. temporary restraining order against three oil companies of the People’s Republic of China.

• Lead trial counsel in a $100 million lawsuit filed by a subsidiary of Apache Corporation against Petrochina, et al.
• Involved a $120 million investment in a major drilling project on the coast of China, where the Apache subsidiary is operator.
• Settled favorably for Apache 10 days after the TRO was obtained.
• Resolved issues that had been holding up the project for 2 years.

Obtained settlement of a major dispute by a Fortune 500 company against a “big-six” accounting firm within 6 months from filing the lawsuit.

• Represented a multi-billion-dollar corporation as plaintiff.
• Settled favorably to client.

Obtained settlement of a major dispute against a national insurance company in 13 days.

• Represented an East Coast corporation in a dispute with its insurer over denial of coverage.
• Settled for the entire multi-million-dollar payment the client sought from the insurer.

Obtained settlement of another major dispute against a “big-six” accounting firm within 15 months from filing of the lawsuit.

Obtained settlement of an employment termination dispute in 3 weeks on terms which the client sought.

Other Plaintiff Contingent-Fee Litigation

Settled two major cases during May and June 1999 ($12 million).

• Served as lead counsel in June 1999 in obtaining $6.25 million settlement in an international oil and gas dispute.
• Served as co-lead counsel in May 1999 in obtaining a $6 million settlement for a terminated CEO of a telecommunications company.

Obtained the largest Employee Stock Ownership Plan recovery in history ($27 million).

• Lead counsel for much of the case, which settled in 1996.
• One of the largest recoveries in the history of North Carolina courts.
• Defendants were Morgan Stanley, NationsBank, and Burlington Industries.

Obtained $120 million stock appraisal award against Royal Dutch Shell.

• Won against Shell in connection with its cash-out merger of Shell Oil U.S. stock.
• Upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court in 1992.

Won $38 million disclosure violation award for class of Shell stockholders who tendered their Shell stock.

• Resulted from my discovery of a $1 billion error in Shell’s published oil and gas reserve calculations.
• Award upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court in 1992.

Won $40 million award for plaintiff class in antitrust class action.

• Plaintiff class included Wisconsin Power and Light, and other electrical utilities suing for alleged bid-rigging in fabricated steel provided to construction projects.
• Final settlement occurred just before trial.

Served as client attorney for our firm, which served as lead counsel for the first six months of the Exxon Valdez litigation against Exxon.

• Worked with Steve Susman in setting up coordination among dozens of plaintiff-side law firms in the case.
• Left that role only because of a technical conflict that appeared with one of numerous defendants.
• After our firm left the case, plaintiffs we organized won a substantial judgment and recovered hundreds of millions of dollars, net of attorneys’ fees and expenses.

Other Plaintiff Litigation on an Hourly Basis

Served as lead counsel in a successful 3-day trial in 1999, defending my client for filing an involuntary bankruptcy petition against an opposing party for failing to pay $10 million.

• Client was lead lawyer for a large publicly-traded oil and gas company creditor.
• Opponent debtor filed a $17 million arbitration claim as offset.
• Opposing party was represented by distinguished counsel.
• Court held the opponent did not even raise a “bona fide” dispute over the vast majority of its claims.

Served as lead counsel in 1998 in a very favorable settlement for our clients (majority shareholders of a telecommunications company), just one month after minority shareholders instituted this legal dispute.

Served as lead counsel in a 1998 case in which our client, president of a large title company, was allowed by settlement to become president of a competing title company in the same city within weeks of leaving the first company, despite an attempt to enforce a non-compete restriction on him.

Served as lead counsel in a case representing Enron Oil & Gas against Meridian Oil.

• Won bench trial in North Dakota.
• Opinion issued in 1997.

Served as lead counsel in 1996 in a major dispute over a $50 million trust fund.

• Several major law firms in Atlanta initially represented my client, the trust beneficiary.
• I entered the case four years into the litigation.
• It settled three weeks later, and my client got what she wanted.

Appointed head of expert witness work for Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines in largest antitrust litigation in airline history — against American Airlines (1994).

• Organized expert work among economics professors from M.I.T., Stanford and University of Chicago, and attacked expert work of American Airlines witnesses.
• Worked with lead trial lawyers David Boies of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Joe Jamail.
• American Airlines stopped the practice in dispute after this lawsuit got underway.

Other Defense Litigation on an Hourly Basis

Served as lead counsel in 1998 successful defense of a $30 million lawsuit, brought against our client, a major midwest public utility holding company.

• Was retained by client, NIPSCO, to try this six-year-old case just weeks before trial.
• Case was tried in federal district court in Chicago.
• After two weeks of trial, confidential settlement was reached.

Successfully defended NIPSCO Industries (Northern Indiana’s public utility holding company) in 1997 against allegations of $60 million actual damages and $140 million punitive damages.

• Case settled two weeks into trial at a tiny fraction of alleged actual damages.
• Contingency-fee lawyers who brought the case failed to get from the public settlement anything close to even their regular hourly billing rates.

Served as co-lead counsel in successful defense in 1997 of Sysco Corporation, one of the largest food distributors in the nation, against allegations by the owners of the popular Houston-based Ninfa’s restaurant chain for tens of millions of dollars.

• Case settled within five months after the opposing side filed the case.
• Sysco received a public apology from Mama Ninfa, the founder of the Ninfa’s restaurant chain, for ever bringing the lawsuit.
• Sysco was allowed to keep its entire creditor claim in bankruptcy against the plaintiff.

Represented of Placid Oil, Penrod Drilling, and Hunt Trusts in $1.5 billion counterclaim lawsuit against 22 banks (1986).

• An estimated 200 lawyers on other side.
• Five to six main lawyers working on our side.
• Headed up key parts of discovery in the case.

Track Record for Quick Settlement

I have a long track record of resolution of cases ranging from $5 million to $600 million or more in dispute — some even without taking them to court. Some recent settlements involve times as short as 2 days in dispute, 5 days, and 30 days. Among the clients for whom these have occurred are Apache Corporation, Bank of Montreal, Enron Oil and Gas, Rockwell Automation, and the owner of a major HMO.