Jim Kreissman is a senior litigation partner in Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP’s Palo Alto office. His practice focuses on government and internal investigations, M&A litigation, securities litigation, and antitrust litigation. He is the Firm’s senior West Coast litigator concentrating in these areas.
Jim currently represents or has recently represented clients in numerous investigatory matters and securities litigation for corporations, financial institutions and their officers and directors. For example, he represents certain former officers and directors of Lehman Brothers in various civil and regulatory matters relating to Lehman’s September 2008 bankruptcy filing. Similarly, Jim represented many of the former officers and directors of Cendant in numerous civil class action suits, derivative suits, SEC investigations and criminal matters. Many of his matters involve companies in technology-related areas, such as drugstore.com, Infineon AG, InfoSpace, Intel and JDS Uniphase.
Jim also has in-depth experience with direct and derivative litigations related to mergers or acquisitions. He recently headed up the successful defense of multi-jurisdictional litigation challenging Silver Lake’s marquee 2013 acquisition of Dell Inc. Some of his other current and/or recent M&A litigation clients include Blum Capital, Captaris, C.B. Richard Ellis, Facet Biotech, Elevation Partners, Hellman & Friedman and KKR. Jim also co-chaired the 2013 PLI Merger Litigation Conference.
Jim has served as counsel to numerous Special Litigation Committees and Audit Committees in connection with various civil, criminal and regulatory matters, including work for Archer Daniels Midland, BEA Systems, Clorox, LDK Solar, Levi Strauss, Oracle, Verifone and Westar Energy. Jim has also conducted numerous internal investigations for companies relating to accounting, tax and regulatory compliance matters.
Jim has also been named one of the best antitrust lawyers in the Bay Area by Bay Area Lawyer Magazine. He has worked on a number of antitrust matters with a particular emphasis on the representation of corporations accused of price-fixing or other anticompetitive behavior in both civil and criminal matters. His representative matters include representations of HannStar (TFT-LCD), Chimei-Iinnolux (TFT-LCD) Elpida Memory Inc. (DRAM), Virgin Atlantic Airlines (airline fuel surcharge), Appleton Papers, Inc. (fax paper), Haynes International (high nickel alloy steel), and Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (food additives).
In 2011, Jim created the Asia Litigation Practice, which coordinates the efforts of the Firm’s litigators to serve the litigation needs of Asia-based clients, particularly with respect to antitrust, government and internal investigations, securities, intellectual property and international arbitration matters. Jim has headed this group since its inception and devotes a substantial part of his practice to the representation of Asia-based clients and Asia-based offices of international corporations and firms.
Jim has been a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP since 1997. He received his A.B. degree, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1984 and his J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School in 1987, where he was awarded the Order of the Coif. He was a law clerk to the Hon. Albert J. Engel, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1987 to 1988. He is admitted to practice in New York and California, as well as numerous federal courts across the country. Jim is also a frequent lecturer to lawyers, law students, public company directors and others on topics relating to his areas of focus.
