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Partners' Jurisdictional Expertise Protects German Client

In the face of a commercial complaint seeking hundreds of millions of dollars, partners Matthew Kemner, Troy Yoshino, and David Rice protected a major corporate client from ever needing to answer. Following their own win before the trial court, where they quashed service of the summons for lack of personal jurisdiction, Matthew, Troy and David secured affirmance from the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles. The plaintiff, a California company, alleged that our client interfered with its prospective business relations, in connection with its effort to become a U.S. distributor of fuel-efficient cars manufactured in Europe. On a complex factual record -- considering even the evidence to which our team successfully objected in the trial court -- the Court of Appeal agreed that the plaintiff had failed to show our client had sufficient contacts with California to subject it to jurisdiction here.