Yavar Bathaee
Partner
Tel: +1 (332) 322-8835
Email: yavar@bathaeedunne.com
Yavar represents clients in complex, high-stakes litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country. Prior to starting the firm, Yavar spent more than a decade in Sullivan & Cromwell’s litigation group, where he represented a wide breadth of clients, including financial institutions, automotive manufacturers, technology companies and central banks.
An experienced procedural tactician, Yavar has devised and executed successful litigation strategies in some of the largest multidistrict litigations and class actions in the United States and has been named a “Rising Star” by New York Super Lawyers in business litigation every year since 2013.
Yavar is currently lead counsel in the following matters:
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Facebook Antitrust Litigation, Co-lead interim class counsel for advertiser class in the Northern District of California.
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Earl v. The Boeing Co., a RICO class action on behalf of airline ticket-holders against Boeing and Southwest Airlines relating to defects in the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft
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Reveal Chat Holdco LLC v. Facebook, Inc., a federal antitrust class action on behalf of developers shut out of Facebook's developer platform.
Other representative matters include:
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Broderick v. Capital One Financial Corp. Counsel for a putative class of credit-card holders in an overcharge RICO and fraud action against Capital One and Amazon for misrepresentations concerning the storage and mining of sensitive user data.
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Novell Inc. v. Microsoft. Represented Microsoft in two-month antitrust jury trial in which the plaintiff, Novell, sought $3 billion in trebled damages for Microsoft’s alleged monopolization of the PC operating systems market, resulting in complete victory for Microsoft and affirmance by the Tenth Circuit and denial of certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Nomura Holdings Inc. v. Federal Housing Finance Agency. Represented defendant Nomura in one of the only Securities Act of 1933 trials in U.S. history in an action brought by the FHFA over mortgage-backed securities sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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CSH Theatres LLC v. Nederlander of San Francisco Associates. Represented CSH Theatres at trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, successfully defending CSH Theatres and individual defendants from breach of fiduciary duty claims and preventing an injunction barring competition with plaintiff.
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In re: Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litig. Represented Goldman Sachs and warehousing defendants in class action antitrust lawsuits alleging the manipulation of London Metal Exchange aluminum prices.
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In re Barclays Bank Plc Securities Litig. Successfully obtained summary judgment for Barclays in a 1933 Securities Act class action arising out of $2.5 billion offering of Barclays ADS preference shares.
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In re Chrysler LLC. Represented Fiat and New Chrysler the bankruptcy and sale of Chrysler, including emergency appeals to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.
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Successfully represented financial institutions in constitutional challenges to extraterritorial applications of U.S. blocking statutes and restraining orders, including successfully petition to quash the restraint and seizure of $2 billion of assets held by Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ outside of the United States.
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In re: Takata Airbag Products Liability Litig. Represented Volkswagen and Audi in nation-wide products liability class action concerning Takata airbag recalls.
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In re: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Represented financial institutions sued in the aftermath of Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud, including in constitutional challenges to one of the first applications of Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.
Yavar also represents clients in criminal and regulatory actions brought by federal, state and foreign governments, including criminal investigations by the United States Department of Justice and regulatory investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also has experience litigating matters involving many other U.S. Government agencies, including the FDIC, FHFA, SIPC, OFAC, the Federal Reserve, and the EPA.
A computer scientist and engineer, Yavar is also developing deep neural network and deep reinforcement learning systems aimed at eclipsing subjective human judgments about litigation strategy and outcomes. Yavar is also one of the first scholars in the nascent field of AI and Machine Learning Law and has authored articles featured in academic journals published by Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley.
Education
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J.D. Fordham Law School, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, Class of 1911 Prize
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B.S. University of California Davis, Computer Science and Engineering
Admissions
California
New York