Quinn Emanuel Wins Litigator of the Week Again, Now for Pangang Victory After 15-Year Fight

Quinn Emanuel has won an extraordinary victory for Chinese client Pangang Group in a federal conspiracy battle by hammering at the U.S. government’s case relentlessly for 15 years – and then winning a dismissal after three days of trial.

In recognition of the remarkable feat, the firm has been named Litigator of the Week, the second week in a row it has taken the prize – after a pair of back-to-back wins in January. Law.com bestowed the honor for the Pangang case on partners John Potter and Michael Packard and Senior Counsel Bob Feldman, who were supported by an all-star team including Alec Levy.

Showing its trademark tireless advocacy, the firm secured the dismissal of all Economic Espionage charges pending against Pangang, which had been charged with conspiring with Walter Liew and Bob Maegerle to steal trade secrets from DuPont related to the production of titanium dioxide.   

The Justice Department argued that the Chinese government, which owns Pangang, had for decades pursued a closely guarded manufacturing process for the white pigment, found in a wide array of products from paints to plastics to Oreo filling. The U.S. alleged that Beijing had directed Liew to obtain the technology, that he had hired former DuPont employee Maegerle to do it, and that the two had sold the trade secrets to Pangang.

Liew and Maegerle were convicted in an earlier trial. Pangang avoided that fate by retaining Quinn Emanuel in 2011. 

We litigated over summons service alone for six years. Later we dramatically limited the government’s case pretrial. At trial we dispatched its witnesses on cross-examination. The case was dismissed on July 13.

Read Law.com's Q&A with Potter, Packard and Feldman here.

The Litigator of the Week honors come on the heels of last Friday’s LOTW laurels for the firm’s epic bankruptcy court victory in the six-year Serta Simmons Bedding battle.

That award-winning pair of accolades, in turn, marks the second time this year Quinn Emanuel has scored back-to-back Litigator of the Week prizes, after the two January awards. One honored our blockbuster December win for Elon Musk and Tesla on Musk’s pay package. The other was for the rare vacating of a $102 million arbitration award over perjury.