Jesse R. Feng

A Massachusetts federal judge on Monday agreed to postpone the trial in a cyberstalking lawsuit against eBay and several former executives at the request of defense attorney Abbe David Lowell, who had cited his ongoing work for several high-profile clients, including New York Attorney General Letitia James in the Trump administration's criminal prosecution. During a hearing, U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris reluctantly yielded to Lowell's schedule by moving the trial from Jan. 5 to March 2, when Lowell will defend eBay CEO Devin Wenig against civil claims by bloggers Ina and David Steiner. Lowell is also representing James in her mortgage fraud case, as well as two other matters — Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lisa Cook's challenge to the Trump administration's effort to remove her, and an obstruction charge against Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta over his arrest at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest. Lowell apologized to the sizable number of lawyers representing other parties in the case, then indirectly blamed the Trump administration and U.S. Department of Justice for taking actions that resulted in his busy schedule. As Lowell began describing upcoming motions in the James case, a U.S. Supreme Court hearing and a likely trial in the Huerta case, the judge interrupted, telling him that while she appreciates the national significance of Lowell's other matters, she's also contending with a four-plus-year-old lawsuit with multiple parties, a trial likely to take a month, a court calendar that is filling up and a jury pool administrator who needs six weeks advance notice. "We planned around this trial," Judge Saris said. The Steiners, in a response to Lowell's request for a continuance, called it "nothing more than a last-ditch tactic to delay judgment against" Wenig "as long as possible," and that the willingness of counsel for eBay to go along with the postponement "is no surprise," as it allows them to put off their inevitable liability. The couple also said that Lowell was aware of the trial date in their suit when he entered his appearances in the other cases. The Steiners run a blog called EcommerceBytes from their home in the Boston suburb of Natick. After publishing a story critical of Wenig's leadership and spending decisions in 2019, they say they suffered a relentless campaign of harassment by eBay employees. The couple said they received disturbing mailings including live insects, a bloody pig face mask, a funeral wreath and other unsolicited items, while neighbors were sent pornographic materials with David Steiner's name on the envelope, and someone posted an online ad inviting strangers to the couple's home. When the Steiners sought help from the police, eBay employees attempted to thwart the investigation, the couple said. Seven eBay employees have pled guilty to criminal charges, and the company itself paid a $3 million criminal penalty and entered a deferred prosecution agreement last year. The Steiners also pursued civil claims against the online retailer, as well as Wenig, Communications Director Steven Wymer, Vice President of Global Operations Wendy Jones, several lower-level employees and a company that provided security for eBay. After a motion for summary judgment ruling in August and several settlements, the surviving claims against eBay, Wenig, Wymer and Jones were set to go to trial just after the new year. The judge's decision Monday pushes jury selection to March 2. "Mr. Lowell, no more cases, all right?" Judge Saris told Lowell. The judge made several pitches to let veteran Boston defense attorney Martin G. Weinberg, who is part of Wenig's legal team, take over Lowell's role on the case, at one point quipping, "I know you're really important, but Marty Weinberg is one of the best lawyers in Boston, so Mr. Wenig would be well-represented." Lowell said Wenig has never met Weinberg, and if forced to proceed with the January date, would seek to hire new counsel instead. Weinberg demurred later in the hearing, telling Judge Saris that while he appreciates the judge's kind words, his role in the case is somewhat limited. Judge Saris was not deterred. "Mr. Weinberg, to the extent there are individual things you could get involved with, I'd encourage you to do so," Judge Saris told the attorney, saying she does not want another delay in the case. "I can't keep doing this." The Steiners and Steiner Associates LLC/eCommerceBytes are represented by Andrew G. Finkelstein, Brian D. Acard, Kenneth B. Fromson and Lawrence D. Lissauer of Finkelstein & Partners LLP, Marc A. Diller of Diller Law LLP, Christopher R. Murphy of Scalli Murphy Law PC, Todd S. Garber, Erin Kelley and Bradley Silverman of Finkelstein Blankinship Frei-Pearson & Garber LLP, and Max Finkelstein of Jacoby & Meyers LLP. EBay is represented by Jack W. Pirozzolo, Kathryn L. Alessi, Scott T. Nonaka, David A. Goldenberg, Daniel J. Feith, Lucas Croslow and Emily A. Rose of Sidley Austin LLP. Wenig is represented by Martin G. Weinberg of Martin G. Weinberg PC, and Abbe David Lowell and Kelly A. Librera of Winston & Strawn LLP. Wymer is represented by Caz Hashemi, Morris J. Foderman, Nick Guenther, Staci E. Cox, Melissa Mills, Kevin G. Heiner, Trevor Templeton and Michelle Dang of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, and Lon F. Povich of Anderson & Kreiger LLP. Jones is represented by Andrew J. O'Connor, Brien T. O'Connor, Casey Stewart, Christopher Durham, Sarah E. Walters, William L. Roberts and Jesse R. Coulon of Ropes & Gray LLP. The case is Steiner et al. v. eBay Inc. et al., case number 1:21-cv-11181, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Nov 17

4 min

Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters, led by Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, HSBC Bank plc, ING Bank N.V. and J.P. Morgan Securities plc, in connection with the offering by Equinix Europe 2 Financing Corporation LLC (the “Issuer”), an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Equinix, Inc. (the “Company”), of €600 million aggregate principal amount of the Issuer’s 3.650% Senior Notes due 2033, fully and unconditionally guaranteed by the Company on an unsecured basis (the “Notes”).~~The Company intends to allocate an amount equal to the net proceeds from the offering of the Notes to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, one or more eligible green projects. Pending full allocation of an amount equal to the net proceeds of the offering of the Notes, the net proceeds may be used in accordance with the Company’s general treasury policy and be held in cash, cash equivalents and/or U.S. government securities or used to repay existing borrowings and upcoming maturities.~~The Company is the world’s digital infrastructure company. Digital leaders harness the Company’s trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. The Company enables customers to access all the right places, partners and possibilities they need to accelerate their advantage.~~The Simpson Thacher team included Dan Webb, Andy Roy, Jesse Feng, Laura Yang and Saakna Batbayar (Capital Markets); Deborah Harris (Corporate – London); Russell Light and Michael Mann (Tax); Leah Malone and Emily Holland (ESG); and Andrew Pagliughi (Blue Sky).

Apr 9

1 min

Simpson Thacher represented the underwriters, led by Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. and Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., among others, in connection with the public offering by Micron Technology, Inc. (“Micron”) of $1 billion aggregate principal amount of 5.30% Senior Notes due 2031.~~Micron delivers a rich portfolio of high-performance DRAM, NAND, and NOR memory and storage products through its Micron® and Crucial® brands.~~The Simpson Thacher team included Dan Webb, Karen Reyes, Jesse Feng and Grace Bowers (Capital Markets); Jonathan Cantor and Lina Pan (Tax); Michael R. Isby (Environmental); Lori E. Lesser, Corina Holland, and Mark Natividad (IP); and Jennie Getsin (FINRA and Blue Sky).

Jan 16

1 min

President Donald Trump's private business organization said it opposes any reduction to the five-year prison sentence of the former IRS contractor who leaked Trump's tax returns and thousands of others, telling the D.C. Circuit the leaker has been shown enough leniency. The Trump Organization LLC asked the appeals court Wednesday for permission to formally oppose Charles Littlejohn's request for resentencing by a new judge, saying in a proposed amicus brief that the government's decision to charge Littlejohn with only one felony count "materially understated the magnitude of Littlejohn's misconduct." The five-year maximum sentence allowed by law for the single count was "the only sentence that meaningfully reflected the seriousness of the offense," the organization said. "Littlejohn already received the principal benefit in this case — a single count with a five-year cap," the organization said. "Any reduction on appeal would stack leniency upon leniency and weaken deterrence for future individuals with insider access who are considering weaponizing confidential taxpayer data." The organization said Trump, his family and hundreds of their entities were affected by the disclosures, along with nonpolitical employees and more than 400,000 other people or entities. It claimed the unauthorized disclosures damaged business relationships, exposed ordinary Trump Organization employees and led to stories that intentionally distorted the tax information. The Internal Revenue Service has notified the organization of the illegal inspection of its tax information for more than 400 of its entities, with more notices still being received, according to the filing. "The institutional stakes are profound," the organization said. "Weaponizing government systems against a sitting president, his namesake company, and hundreds of his employees undermines the public's trust in the federal government and invites future breaches whenever political considerations are at play." Littlejohn has not taken a position on the organization's request to join the case, according to the filing. Littlejohn pled guilty in October 2023 to one count of disclosing tax return information without authorization from around 2018 until 2020 while on the job with the IRS as a contractor through Booz Allen Hamilton. Republicans called his plea agreement a "sweetheart deal." Littlejohn admitted to downloading thousands of returns and leaking Trump's info to The New York Times in 2019 and other people's tax data the following year to ProPublica. Before he was sentenced during a two-hour hearing in January 2024, Littlejohn told the court that he broke the law "out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information" and that he believed "sharing it was the only way to effect change." Littlejohn said he was alarmed that, after taking office in 2017, Trump called media outlets "the enemy of the American people" and declined to release his tax returns to the public. Meanwhile, Trump's attorney pushed for the maximum sentence of five years, saying Littlejohn leaked the returns just ahead of the 2020 elections and likely cost Trump votes. Littlejohn's sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, called the leaks an "intolerable attack on our constitutional democracy." "The judiciary must be an unbreakable bulwark against politically minded actors targeting or threatening elected officials," she said during the hearing. On appeal, Littlejohn has challenged the judge's statements and asked the court to vacate his sentence and order resentencing by someone else. He accused Judge Reyes of "predetermining" a sentence that was three times as long as the recommended guidelines, which suggested a low-end sentence of 18 months. Littlejohn pointed to off-the-record meetings the judge held with his attorneys and prosecutors, and he said she improperly considered a letter from lawmakers urging her to give him the maximum five years. She unfairly compared him to the Jan. 6 rioters, he said. During oral arguments this month, Littlejohn's attorney, assistant public defender Celia Goetzl, called the judge's claim that he had targeted Trump and threatened democracy "exaggerated." Judge Reyes "misunderstood the magnitude of the offense, the nature of the offense and the magnitude of the harm," the attorney said. However, the appeals judges seemed unlikely to side with Littlejohn, with one of them, U.S. Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, reading aloud from the sentencing transcript and concluding that Judge Reyes had thought hard about her decision and considered all sides. "I have to say," Judge Walker said, "I hope I'm never sitting in the chair that your client was, but if I were, I would want a sentencing judge who thought about my case as hard as it sounds like Judge Reyes thought about that case and who approached it with the thoughtfulness that it seemed like she approached it." The Trump Organization said in the filing Wednesday that Littlejohn's conduct should have been more harshly punished. The organization also highlighted that the U.S. Department of Justice was under the direction of former President Joe Biden's administration when it made the charging decision. The organization has "a distinct and vital interest" in the appeal's outcome, it argued. A reduced sentence would not only hurt the public's confidence in the justice system but also undermine privacy rights, the organization said. "A lesser sentence would not only trivialize the profound breach of trust at the heart of this case — it would compound the damage already done to The Trump Organization, its employees, and the integrity of every enterprise that relies on the government to safeguard its most confidential information," according to the organization. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division, declined to comment. Representatives of the Trump Organization and Littlejohn did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Trump Organization is represented by Jesse R. Binnall of Binnall Law Group. The government is represented by Edward P. Sullivan, Jonathan E. Jacobson, Matthew R. Galeotti and W. Connor Winn of the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division. Littlejohn is represented by Tony Axam Jr., Matthew L. Farley, Celia Goetzl and A.J. Kramer of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia. The case is U.S. v. Littlejohn, case number 24-3019, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Nov 13

5 min

Simpson Thacher represented CBRE Group in connection with an offering by CBRE Services of $500 million in aggregate principal amount of 5.5% Senior Notes due 2029. The net proceeds of the offering will be used to finance in part the acquisition of J&J Worldwide Services.~~CBRE Group (NYSE: CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2023 revenue).~~The Simpson Thacher team included William Brentani, Jesse Feng and Maggie Whalen (Capital Markets); and Jonathan Cantor and Adam Hersch (Tax).

Feb 23

1 min