Richard W. Clary is a partner in Cravath's Litigation Department, and until recently, the Firm's Head of Litigation. His cases have included securities defense for numerous financial institutions and for IBM; antitrust defense for Lucent, IBM and INEOS; biotech patent litigation (on both the plaintiff and defense sides) for Schering AG and Berlex; telephony and semiconductor patent litigation (on both the plaintiff and defense sides) for Lucent; patent and antitrust litigation (at both the trial and appellate levels) for Paragon Trade Brands; trade secret, trademark and patent litigation for IBM; trade secret litigation for INEOS; bankruptcy litigation for Chase and Credit Suisse; and appellate litigation for numerous clients.
Mr. Clary has extensive district court and appellate experience; he has also handled both international and domestic arbitrations.
Mr. Clary was lead counsel for Credit Suisse in all its Enron-related civil litigation in Federal, state and bankruptcy courts. He argued on behalf of Credit Suisse the successful appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, reversing class certification in the $40 billion Enron Federal class action litigation. The Fifth Circuit ruled that Credit Suisse and other banks had no fiduciary obligation to Enron's shareholders, had no duty of disclosure, had made no misrepresentations to Enron's shareholders, and had not committed any conduct that rose to the level of a primary violation of the securities laws. The District Court subsequently granted summary judgment for Credit Suisse.
Currently, Mr. Clary is lead counsel for Credit Suisse in defense of actions relating to residential mortgage-backed securities nationwide. He previously represented Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank in litigation regarding the Hexion/Huntsman merger in Delaware, Texas and New York and recently, successfully defended Credit Suisse in a securities class action relating to collateralized debt obligations. Mr. Clary also successfully represented the outside directors of Citigroup in connection with subprime-related litigation and defended various financial institutions in securities litigation relating to Dynegy, El Paso and Anchor Glass.