Directors & Officers Liability
NZA possesses experience in both D&O insurance (monitoring) and defending the actual directors and officers in litigation. When corporations and their directors and officers have been faced with bet-the-company litigation, our attorneys have stepped in to obtain the best possible results, whether at arbitration, trial, or during the litigation process.
We have defended directors and officers in claims such as:
- fraud
- mismanagement
- conflicts of interest
- self-dealing
- breach of fiduciary duty
- sales of businesses
- employment-related matters
NZA partners have defended and consulted with directors and officers of publicly traded and privately held businesses for decades.
In one recent example, we defended directors and officers of a client in a multi-million-dollar arbitration in Philadelphia involving a claim against our clients for misrepresenting the assets and customers in connection with a sale of a subsidiary business. We were able to obtain an arbitration decision which resulted in damages being awarded to our clients.
Our trial acumen is a major asset in defending and evaluating D&O claims. Few commercial litigation firms can match our time in the courtroom on civil trials. This provides us with a unique perspective to be able to develop issues and evidence, know what is important and admissible at trial, interrogate witnesses, and evaluate how a judge and jury will receive a case. Our attorneys are adept at looking beyond the paper trail to be able to evaluate the defense of D&O claims. Even when trial is not the goal, and it rarely is, our trial experience provides our client with the credibility of taking the case to trial and with the ability to maximize settlement value.
We recognize the importance of documents, and we can manage even the largest paper-intensive case. However, our lawyers know how to look beyond the documents, develop theories that will hold up at trial, and execute plans for litigation and trial by effectively using the documents. Our experience leads us to see documents as a means to an end, not necessarily the end, itself.