Daniel B. Levin

Key Representations

White Collar and Investigations

• Argued in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of an anonymous tax law firm in a closely watched case involving a grand jury subpoena issued to the law firm in connection with a criminal investigation into a client.
• Clyde & Co. in extracting the UK law firm from a $330 million 1MDB government forfeiture case involving an arbitral award, which the U.S. Department of Justice alleged were connected to a fraudulent joint venture between 1MDB and PetroSaudi.
• Plains All American Pipeline in a four month criminal trial arising from a 46-count indictment following the Refugio Beach oil release. In 2021, Mr. Levin defeated hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal restitution claims lodged against Plains when the trial court awarded claimants a total of $150,000 out of the nearly $700 million.
• Bechtel alongside two subcontractors in criminal and civil False Claims Act litigation involving claims of false billings in connection with the clean-up of a nuclear waste project. Following a settlement in 2020, Mr. Levin currently advises Bechtel in navigating an agreed upon reviewership that is expected to last three years.

Class Actions

• Plains All American Pipeline in multiple civil lawsuits arising from the release of crude oil from a pipeline near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County in May 2015, including two class action lawsuits in the Central District of California.
• Intel Corporation, in successfully settling on the eve of trial a consumer class action involving claims of unfair business practices with respect to performance of Pentium 4 processors.
• Philip Morris USA in a consumer class action involving claims of unfair business practices, which resulted in a defense judgment after a three-month trial. Successfully defended the verdict on appeal, winning an affirmance after oral argument in the California Court of Appeal and defeating the plaintiffs’ petition for review to the California Supreme Court.
• Facebook in appeals to the Ninth Circuit that challenged the settlement of a consumer class action and the dismissal of a second purported class action alleging that Facebook violated state privacy laws.

Mass Tort & Commercial Litigation

• Juul in multidistrict litigation involving over a thousand suits, including consumer class actions, personal injury suits and suits by public entities that allege unfair competition, product defect, public nuisance and claims alleging injuries ranging from addiction to death.
• Snap in multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California involving claims of product defect and alleged emotional and physical injuries from the use of social media.
• Kyocera Corporation in state and federal court in Michigan relating to long-term supply agreements for polysilicon used for solar panel manufacturing. Won on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
• An investor in an Internet start-up, as lead counsel, in an arbitration regarding control of the company, which settled on the eve of trial. The founder of a real estate investment firm in litigation involving alleged fraud by investors in the business.

Crisis Response

• MGM Resorts International in civil litigation arising from the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
• Occidental Chemical Corporation in federal and state court litigation arising out of the Bayou Corne sinkhole in Assumption Parish, Louisiana.
• Transocean, a drilling company, in litigation arising from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. After a multi-month trial, the court delivered a defense verdict finding that under the drilling contract, BP bore indemnity obligations for the millions of barrels of oil discharged from the Macondo well. Successfully argued appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from the dismissals of private environmental claims and state-law claims.