S&C Co-Chair Robert Giuffra Jr. and Litigation Group Deputy Managing Partner Amanda Davidoff were featured in Law360’s “How They Won It” series. They discussed their role in an historic appellate win in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which vacated an “unprecedented” $16.1 billion judgment—which had grown to $18 billion with interest—against the Argentine Republic.
Amanda highlighted the significant impact this ruling will have on U.S. litigation, noting that U.S. courts were at risk of becoming a haven for foreign law claims that do not belong there. “You could count the number of U.S. law issues on one hand,” she said. “Much of the complexity came from understanding Argentine law deeply and then counteracting the plaintiffs’ efforts to use U.S. law concepts instead of Argentine law concepts.”
Bob emphasized how important the case was to Argentine citizens, noting that $18 billion is equal to approximately 45% of the country’s budget. “We’ve done a number of ‘bet the company’ cases.… We have not done, and I don’t know if anyone has done, a ‘bet the country’ case,” he said. “Something front and center in all of our minds was the impact on 45 million people.”
Read: How Sullivan & Cromwell Won an $18B ‘Bet the Country’ Case