Why law firm risk leaders receive recognition, it’s worth noting — Congrats, Robyn! — “DLA Piper shortlisted for five Financial Times 2025 North America Innovative Lawyer awards” —

• “Finally, Robyn Spanier, the firm’s Executive Director of New Business Intake and Procurement, was shortlisted in the Innovation in Strategic Direction category for her role revolutionizing the firm’s new business intake process, leading to market-leading turnaround times for running conflict searches and processing new matters.”
• “This year’s North America Innovative Lawyer awards ceremony will be held in New York on December 8.”

“Chris Cuomo Loses Appeal Bid to Disqualify Arbitrator in CNN Proceedings” —

• “Chris Cuomo can’t revive his bid to disqualify the arbitrator overseeing his $125 million claim against CNN, a New York appeals court has ruled.”
• “The court found that Cuomo ‘did not set forth facts to indicate that the arbitrator was biased in his handling of the arbitration.’ He had initiated the proceedings after he was fired by CNN in 2021 after a deposition revealed he gave advice to his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was accused of sexual harassment.”
• “Cuomo’s lawyers had moved to remove JAMS arbitrator Stephen Sonnenberg because he failed to disclose four CNN-related matters that his former law firm handled when he worked at Paul Hastings. He was also personally involved in a 2003 case involving the network, though he said he had no recollection of the matter.”
• “In the order, issued on Tuesday, the court stressed that Cuomo’s lawyers had no issue with the 39 orders issued so far in the arbitration. ‘Nor did counsel claim there was any misconduct on the part of the arbitrator, and was willing to proceed with the arbitration, but only if a new arbitrator was selected by the parties,’ the ruling stated. ‘However, an arbitrator may not be disqualified solely because of his relationship to a party, but rather, upon facts demonstrating partiality to a litigant.'”
• “Cuomo’s bid for discovery to explore Sonnenberg’s recollection of the CNN case he was involved in was properly denied since it was grounded in speculation that he wasn’t honest, the appeals court concluded. It also pointed to Sonnenberg handling the case more than 20 years ago and that his firm was only paid $3,000 in legal fees.”
• “Cuomo had been with CNN since 2013, first as the anchor of its morning show New Day, and then as a primetime host, where he would often have more of a ‘take’ on the day’s news. In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, he also hosted his older brother on his CNN program, with Zucker and Gollust’s blessing, despite there being a ban on such interviews since 2013. He currently hosts a show on rival cable outlet NewsNation.”

“When Disclosure Becomes Disqualification: Management of Arbitrator Disclosure in MTCC No. 1251 v Windsor Arms” —

• “The appearance of arbitrator bias has been a topic of significant interest in recent years, as well as significant concern given the risks it poses. As a result, any case law that handles new or uncommon factual applications of this issue will be of interest to readers.”
• “One recent example is MTCC No. 1251 v Windsor Arms Hotel Corp., 2025 ONSC 5009, where the Ontario Superior Court considered the issue of an arbitrator having an unrelated matter referred to them by a party’s expert witness, as well as the arbitrator’s handling of the potential appearance of a conflict of interest once it arose. While the Court acknowledged that a single business referral may not be sufficient grounds for disqualification, the arbitrator’s subsequent handling of the conflict created an undeniable perception of partiality. Below, we review the decision.”
• “Roughly 30 hours before the hearing was set to begin, the arbitrator emailed the parties to disclose a ‘clear appearance of conflict.’ The conflict stemmed from the fact that the Tax Expert had recently referred an unrelated litigation matter to the arbitrator’s law firm, and the arbitrator himself had been tasked with ‘preparing the pleadings and assuming carriage of it.’ The arbitrator advised that he had no prior dealings with the Tax Expert, and that no discussions had occurred with respect to his involvement in the arbitration.[3]”
• “The arbitrator’s email presented three options to resolve the conflict: (1) his resignation, (2) a written waiver from both parties, or (3) the exclusion of the Tax Expert’s evidence with a corresponding adjournment to allow MTCC 1251 to retain a new expert. The next day, counsel for Windsor Arms asked the arbitrator to elaborate, taking the position that there was no conflict.”
• “Counsel also suggested a fourth option that the Arbitrator did not mention: ‘the client [who had been referred to the Arbitrator’s firm] could retain someone else and [the Arbitrator] would no longer act.’ In response, the arbitrator reiterated his position, advising that he was content to proceed with the arbitration provided that ‘everyone signs off in one way or another about what might be perceived to be a conflict of interest.'”
• “On the day the hearing was scheduled to begin, MTCC 1251 declined to waive the conflict. Windsor Arms, however, took the position that there was no conflict and the arbitration should proceed. The arbitrator then reversed his position, stating that because Windsor Arms objected to him withdrawing (in other words, because there was no agreement between the parties that his withdrawal was necessary), he would no longer resign. In a series of subsequent emails, the arbitrator suggested the arbitration could and should still proceed, prompting MTCC 1251 to bring a formal motion (within the arbitral process) for his removal. The arbitrator heard the motion and determined that there was no conflict. Consequently, MTCC 1251 commenced an Application in the Superior Court of Justice.”
• “The sole issue before the Court was whether the circumstances gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias, a standard set out in s. 13(1) of the Arbitration Act, 1991, which provides that a court may remove an arbitrator where circumstances exist that may give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.”
• “The Court, after a de novo review of the facts and the applicable law, concluded that the apprehension of bias was reasonable and that the arbitrator should be disqualified. The Court agreed with the arbitrator that in many cases, a single business referral might not be sufficient for removal; however, in this particular case, the arbitrator’s subsequent conduct following his initial disclosure – when considered in its entirety – gave rise to a reasonable apprehension. The Court identified seven key events in support of this conclusion.”
• “Although Windsor Arms does not necessarily raise a novel issue of law, it does emphasize how the management of an arbitrator’s disclosure, rather than the subject matter of the disclosure itself, can be determinative on a test for reasonable apprehension of bias, and that such management can colour events normal to the arbitration process in such a manner that they are construed in a different light.”
• “Most obviously, the arbitrator’s own assessment of their disclosure carries significant weight. The arbitrator’s initial declaration of a ‘clear appearance of conflict’ was not merely a disclosure; rather, it was a determinative self-assessment by the person with the fullest knowledge of the facts. The arbitrator’s reversal on this point was, unsurprisingly, fundamentally impactful to the test for apprehension of bias.”
• “On the other hand, however, the arbitrator was placed in a somewhat invidious position in that his non-disclosure of his communications with the Tax Expert, while relevant to the Court’s analysis, appeared to be the correct approach with respect to the preservation of privilege. It might have been possible for the arbitrator to seek the unrelated client’s waiver of that privilege in order to permit the disclosure of those communications, but there would have been no guarantee that the client would agree to such a request. Furthermore, given the abbreviated timeline of events, this might simply not have been logistically possible in the time available.”
• “Similarly, the exclusion of the clients from the case conference – which is generally unremarkable in normal circumstances – was instead determined to be an additional factor that exacerbated the apprehension of bias. Evidently, procedural decisions – even if standard – must be weighed against the specific circumstances of the parties and the situation at hand.”
• “By contrast, it is equally important to highlight the Court’s emphasis that a single business referral might not be grounds for disqualification. As we have written elsewhere, serving as an arbitrator is an inherently commercial endeavour, and so too is maintaining a practice as counsel at the same time. In such circumstances, it is entirely possible that these two spheres may overlap – particularly in specialized industries – such that professional relationships and business referrals may exist between participants in an arbitration.”
• “Ultimately, Windsor Arms perhaps speaks most directly to the challenge of managing disclosures for arbitrators wearing more than one hat – i.e. maintaining a counsel practice while practicing as an arbitrator (and in some circumstances, an expert witness practice as well). Ultimately, arbitrators and counsel will need to remain mindful not only of the need for disclosure, but of the manner in which such disclosures are managed as well.”

“Atty-Trustee Conflicts Doom Scaife Estate’s $26M Tax Refund” —

• “A Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky attorney was also acting as Mellon heir Richard Scaife’s lawyer, trustee and media executive when he signed releases that kept Scaife’s spending of his inheritance secret from his children, so a resulting $200 million settlement between the children and Scaife’s estate was not a bona fide tax-exempt expense, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled Tuesday.”
• “Citing the apparent conflicts of interest from attorney H. Yale Gutnick’s multiple hats, a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel said the agreements indemnifying the trustees that Scaife signed every time he withdrew money from a family trust were not presumptively valid. Scaife’s estate therefore could not claim the $200 million the trustees paid to replenish the account as an expense of the estate and claim a $26 million refund on state inheritance taxes.”
• “‘Conflicts of interest and fiduciary duties abound in the numerous and layered transactions underlying this matter. Those transactions, in the end, resulted in a several-hundred-million-dollar liability of the estate, the complete absolvement of the trustees of any liability for distributions, and the payment to attorney Gutnick’s law firm of approximately $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees,’ Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough wrote in the panel’s opinion. ‘Although we cannot divine whether these results were intended by decedent, we must agree with the Westmoreland County Orphans’ Court’s determination that the estate has not succeeded in removing them from suspicion’s reach.'”
• “Scaife had been a beneficiary of a trust that his mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife, had established in 1935, with any children he would have as ‘remainder beneficiaries.’ The trustees of that fund, including Gutnick, allowed Scaife to make 19 withdrawals from the trust between 1996 and his 2014 death, each time without seeking court approval — allegedly to hide the distributions from his children, David and Jennie, the Commonwealth Court said.”
• “To protect themselves, the trustees had Scaife sign agreements each time indemnifying them from any consequences of the withdrawals, which eventually drained all $400 million from the trust to support Scaife’s media holdings.”
• “Upon discovering that the trust had been drained and left nothing for them, David Scaife and Jennie Scaife’s estate sued the trustees. They reached a $200 million settlement in early 2020, and the trustees sought to have that deducted from the value of Scaife’s estate for state and federal inheritance taxes.”
• “But in order for an estate’s liabilities based on promises or agreements to be deductible, the deals need to be genuine or ‘bona fide’ and made in consideration for money or something worth money.”
• “In oral arguments in February, Gutnick’s attorney David Strassburger told the panel that the indemnifications were bona fide agreements between Scaife and the trustees, since Scaife got the ‘consideration’ of not having to go through the courts to access the money.”
• “But the Commonwealth Court said Tuesday the agreements were not genuine, because Gutnick had conflicts of interest in getting Scaife to sign them. Gutnick had been a personal friend Scaife’s; his personal and business attorney; trustee of multiple trusts, including the 1935 trust and other parts of the family fortune; executor of Scaife’s estate; and a board member and president of Scaife’s newspaper companies.”
• “Scaife had not had an outside attorney review the indemnification agreements before signing them, and Gutnick got both the benefit of indemnification and the money going to the media companies he helped run for Scaife, the opinion said.”
• “‘Both the execution and postmortem enforcement of the indemnification agreements clearly were born of a multi-layered confidential relationship between decedent and attorney Gutnick that implicated the array of attorney Gutnick’s significant and potentially conflicting professional and fiduciary duties,’ the opinion said. ‘As a matter of law, then, the indemnification agreements, in this context, are presumptively voidable.'”