Who knew getting those succulent fruits from the South American jungles to your lunchbox would involve so many lawyers? Turns out BigLaw is all over bananas from Colombia and pineapples from Nicaragua.
First, the bananas. The Cincinnati Business Courier goes in depth on a report commissioned by a special committee of Chiquita‘s board. It’s a follow up in many respects to another fascinating piece done by Sue Reisinger for Corporate Counsel. Basically, Chiquita was harvesting bananas and fell into a cycle of paying off paramiltary groups and guerillas alike. One of the groups that had extorted the company was linked to a terrorist attack that killed, among others, five American missionaries. Their families have been trying to get redress from Chiquita, which also faced a criminal probe from the DOJ and the DC US Attorney’s office.
Then, the pineapples. Dole and Dow Chemical were slapped with a class-action suit purporting to represent thousands of workers who had been sterilized by chemicals used to treat the pineapples. In a scathing rebuke, Judge Victoria Chaney of Los Angeles Superior Court lambasted plaintiffs’ counsel and dismissed all the claims from the bench. Turns out, the plaintiffs had been recruited and coached by counsel – some of them had never stepped foot on a pineapple plantation.
The fiesta of BigLaw involvement, after the jump.
AmLaw summarized the Chiquita case and the BigLaw involvement:
Former Covington & Burling partner and current U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., was tapped by Chiquita to handle the Justice Department inquiry. The ensuing legal proceedings raised questions about the legal advice Chiquita had received about the payments from its outside counsel at Kirkland & Ellis.
and
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson partners David Hennes, Michael Bromwich, and William McGuinness are serving as counsel to Chiquita’s special litigation committee along with Joseph DeMaria of Miami’s Tew Cardenas. (Former Chiquita executives still can be prosecuted under the company’s plea agreement; former general counsel Robert Olson, who hasn’t been charged but left Chiquita in 2006, is being represented by Arnold & Porter‘s Robert Litt.)
Meanwhile, on the pineapple case, Dow Chemical relied on Scott Edelman (Stanford BA ’81, Berkeley JD ’84) of Gibson Dunn.
If not for all the bribery, right-wing militias, and left-wing guerillas, we’d hope that the attorneys got to go on some nice discovery trips.
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Viva Pinata was great because I was able to club things with my shovel.
Viva Pinata was great because I was able to club things with my shovel.