More on Pedro and Ryan's Move to DLA Piper!

Wow, this is pretty cool -- it turns out Bono actually penned an ode to their enduring relationship.

Enjoy!

DLA Piper Opens Miami Office.

Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga's wanderlust continues, along with C. Ryan Reetz.

How best to describe these two, rockin' down the highway from GT to SSD, and now to DLA P?

The Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Seals and Crofts, Bert and Ernie.....believe me I could do this all night.

But they're both friends of mine, both tremendous lawyers and they're both going to DLA Piper:

Helping DLA launch in Miami are former Squire Sanders partners Pedro Martinez-Fraga and C. Ryan Reetz, both of whom predominantly advise Latin American clients on international commercial and investment treaty arbitrations. Martinez-Fraga worked at Greenberg Traurig before moving to Squire Sanders, where he has served as head of that firm's international dispute resolution practice in Florida and Latin America, according to The NLJ.

Sonny and Cher, Laurel and Hardy, Steve and Edie, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Laverne and Shirley......this is kinda fun......

When's The Right Time To Raise Rule 11 in A Pleading?

Chile Response

Anyone remember the RICO suits brought by the Republic of Chile against several banks over Pinochet and alleged money-laundering?

This is the one where Pedro Martinez-Fraga got conflicted out and had to hand it over to Bilzin's William Hill.

Well in a recent response to a motion to dismiss filed by one of the banks, there appears this curious paragraph:

We are dismayed that counsel for PNC would raise the earlier sending of a Rule 11 letter to predecessor counsel. That letter was directed at the initial complaint, a pleading that has long since been withdrawn (although it was withdrawn for reasons wholly unrelated to anything in the letter). No subsequent letters have been received and we would not expect to receive one, given the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing by the bank. We understand that Rule 11 letters are confidential among counsel, and object to counsel raising it to try to gain some sort of litigation advantage here. Further, despite PNC's aggressive rhetoric, one similarly situated bank involved in the Pinochet enterprise has already settled with the Republic of Chile.1 Moreover, one other bank facing similar claims by the Republic of Chile likewise took an aggressive approach and filed a Rule 11 motion. That motion was filed at 5:30 p.m. on September 3, 2009 and denied by the court 20 minutes later, without the need for a response from the Republic of Chile. We expect that, because counsel for these banks are in close communication, the court's off-hand denial of the Rule 11 motion in the other case has counseled Riggs' counsel from making a similar motion. Nonetheless, we categorically deny making any litigation decisions in this case based on the Rule 11 letter, and ask that the Court disregard the reference in this motion.

Hmm, let's see the reference to the Rule 11 letter in the motion to dismiss:

After receiving our motion to dismiss and our strong Rule 11 letter, CDE dismissed everything except its Florida RICO counts and filed a second amended complaint. Unfortunately for CDE, even this latest amendment still cannot save this case from dismissal.

There's also this:

Despite the Local Rule’s clear command, a motion to dismiss [DE 23] and a Rule 11 letter, all squarely notifying CDE that they would be well-advised to specify some act post-March 11, 2004 -- after three long complaints and a 39-page Civil RICO Case Statement, they still have not specified one. As a result, they are time-barred.

The underlying legal issue is whether or not the injury discovery rule -- long applicable to federal RICO claims -- applies to Florida RICO claims as well.

The bank's reply is due January 4.

Mark Tobin Is Proud of His Bottles.

Hi folks, lots of fun stories floating around today.

First, as anyone working at a big firm knows, conflicts checks are a real hassle.

Just ask my buddy and excellent lawyer extraordinare Pedro Martinez-Fraga:

Martinez-Fraga asked to withdraw as counsel for the Chilean government in all four of the Miami cases after the conflict issue was raised by Berger Singerman attorneys Mitchell Berger of Fort Lauderdale and James Cunningham Jr. of Miami. They alleged in an April 27 response that the presence of another Squire Sanders attorney on Espirito Santo’s board caused a conflict. Another conflict stems from PNC’s status as a Squire Sanders client, attorneys familiar with the case say.

Espirito Santo noted Squire Sanders of counsel Eric Buermann is a senior director on Espirito Santo’s board, and a bank court filing said the Squire Sanders team initially refused to withdraw from the case.

Berger and Cunningham also wrote that Squire Sanders attorneys told them Buermann said there was no reason to withdraw.

“Squire Sanders & Dempsey indicated to the bank’s counsel that based on the facts known by Mr. Buermann, there was no reason for it to withdraw. The only way that the law firm could have reached this conclusion was by interviewing Mr. Buermann about his knowledge of the facts of the case. The bank pointed out that any such interview is a violation of ... rules of professional conduct,” Espirito Santo said in a court filing.

You know, this kind of stuff never used to happen at Greenberg.

But enough about pesky conflicts issues, let's discuss bottles and the lawyers who put delicious things in them:

Prominent Miami Lawyer Mark Tobin and his wife Christine Ferrari Tobin, recently introduced their new wine brand Mattebella, an old world style wine from their Vineyard in Long Island, New York, to the South Florida market.

"After 4 years of nurturing and aging, we are finally able to introduce our wines to the market," said Tobin, a partner in the private property rights law firm of Brigham Moore, LLP. "We are extremely proud of what is in our bottles."

You should be. And look at what's in them:

Aged only in the finest French Oak, the wine enjoys feminine tannins with hints of coffee and chocolate flavors.

Hey, I also enjoy feminine tannins with hints of coffee and chocolate flavors!

In fact I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling just repeating the phrase "feminine tannins with hints of coffee and chocolate flavors."

Congrats Mark, you can deliver a case to my friend John the shoeshine guy over at the courthouse on Flagler, he'll get it to me pronto.

Costly Arbitration Is Cheap and Efficient

That seems to be the message from the continuing money pit that is the Americatel arbitration debacle:

Americatel El Salvador won an arbitration against Compañía de Telecommunicaciones de El Salvador -- or CTE -- to allow greater access to the Salvadoran market. It also got the green light from a federal judge in Miami to collect some $12 million in compensation.

But CTE didn't stop fighting. The company has appealed the arbitration decision all the way to the Supreme Court in El Salvador and is taking the U.S. bout to the federal appeals court in Atlanta.

Riding on the outcome is more than just prying open lucrative Central American telecommunications markets.

The CTE-Americatel matchup is a test of the growing practice of binding arbitration, the very purpose of which is avoiding lengthy and costly litigation. Contracts increasingly contain clauses pledging parties to submit to binding arbitration. Americatel versus CTE is not the first arbitration case to drag on in regular courts, but it has gained widespread attention and could set a precedent for many more pending cases.

But don't worry, says former Greenberger Pedro Martinez-Fraga, now toiling for some out-of-staters at SSD:

''The Americatel case is an aberration in its complexity and not the rule,'' said Pedro Martinez-Fraga, coordinator of the international dispute resolution practice in Florida and Latin America at Squires Sanders & Dempsey.

''There's an effort by courts universally to insure that appellate recourse is minimized,'' said Martinez-Fraga, who is not involved in the case. ``That's just the way the world is heading.''

Nice try, Pedro, but the trends say otherwise. Business-to-business arbitration is increasingly as costly, in some cases more so, than an efficiently managed federal suit.

In Americatel it appears we have the worst of both worlds.