Overview
(January 25, 2021, Washington, DC) — Steptoe has secured a victory for commercial real estate firm Avison Young in a long-running business litigation case in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. On January 19, the court granted Avison Young's motion for summary judgment, in full, and dismissed claims for trade secret misappropriation, tortious interference, and civil conspiracy asserted by rival commercial real estate brokerage Newmark, Inc.
The order capped a successful outcome to five years of litigation, in which 22 depositions were taken, hundreds of thousands of pages were produced, and the plaintiffs filed 12 discovery-related motions. Multiple motions were filed in connection with the summary judgment order, including Avison Young’s motion for summary judgment, plus three motions by Newmark (all of which were denied) – a motion for partial summary judgment, a motion for judicial notice, and a motion to supplement the summary judgment record. In all, the papers submitted on these motion involved hundreds of pages of briefing and thousands of pages of exhibits.
In its order, the court found Newmark's allegations of tortious interference were legally invalid because Avison Young's competitive conduct was privileged under the common law, and found that Newmark's allegations of trade secret theft and civil conspiracy lacked sufficient evidence to warrant a trial. The plaintiffs had sought more than $30 million in compensatory damages in this case, which is one of five similar cases that Newmark has filed against Avison Young around the country.
The Steptoe team was led by New York partner Nate Kritzer, along with Chicago partner Jeremy Goldkind, Washington of counsel Jeremy Glen, and associates Julie Amadeo, Marty Bagchi, Morgan Lucas, Jason Meade, and Meghan Newcomer.
About Steptoe
In more than 100 years of practice, Steptoe has earned an international reputation for vigorous representation of clients before governmental agencies, successful advocacy in litigation and arbitration, and creative and practical advice in structuring business transactions. Steptoe has more than 500 lawyers and other professional staff across offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. For more information, visit www.steptoe.com.
