Jonathan Watkins represents public and private businesses and financial institutions in complex litigation and white-collar investigations. His practice covers securities, derivative, and other shareholder actions, M&A-related litigation, suits alleging breaches of fiduciary duties by corporate directors, disputes involving complex financial benchmarks and instruments, litigation arising out of commercial contracts and transactions, antitrust and other competition-related litigation, and government and internal investigations. Jonathan has represented clients at trial in federal and state courts across the country and before several federal and state appellate courts.
Jonathan’s white-collar practice focuses on representing financial institutions and other corporate clients in investigations by regulators, prosecutors, and enforcement agencies, including the Department of Justice and United States Attorneys’ offices, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve. He recently represented a financial institution in government inquiries into the alleged manipulation of an interest-rate benchmark.
Jonathan graduated magna cum laude from Fordham University School of Law, where he earned the Fordham Law School Prize, served as a Member of the Fordham Law Review, and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University. Jonathan began his career with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.
Jonathan’s securities, shareholder, and M&A-related litigation experience includes:
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Defending Credit Suisse from Section 10(b) claims arising from the collapse of Enron, including the $40 billion lead securities class action, Newby v. Enron Corp., Cons. Action No. H-01-3624, MDL No. 1446 (S.D. Tex.), and the several coordinated and consolidated cases.
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Representing Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank in Texas and New York in litigation over the failed Hexion-Huntsman merger, including in Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc. v. Credit Suisse, Cayman Islands Branch, Index No.114552/08 (N.Y. Sup. Ct.), where Hexion sought specific performance of $15.4 billion of financing commitments, and at jury trial in Huntsman Corp. v. Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, No. 08-09-09258 (9th Dist. Tex.), where Huntsman sought $4.65 billion in compensatory tort damages.
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Representing The Fresh Market and its directors in several shareholder class actions targeting Apollo Global Management’s $1.36 billion acquisition of The Fresh Market.
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Representing certain independent directors of Reynolds American before the North Carolina Business Court and the North Carolina Court of Appeals in shareholder class actions challenging Reynolds American’s $27.4 billion acquisition of Lorillard.
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Representing Merrill Lynch’s independent directors in the Southern District of New York, New York Supreme Court, and Delaware Chancery Court in shareholder litigation over the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger.
