Emma Gilmore Named 2024 Plaintiff Litigator of the Year by Benchmark Litigation

Pomerantz is proud to announce that Partner Emma Gilmore has been named the 2024 Plaintiff Litigator of the Year by Benchmark Litigation. “I am honored to receive the Plaintiff Litigator of the Year award from Benchmark Litigation,” said Emma. “I also wish to congratulate my fellow nominees who represented a diverse and talented group of litigators.” The award was announced on March 13th at an event in New York City.

This honor caps off an extraordinary year of achievement for Emma. In August 2023, Emma obtained a $74 million settlement for investors in Arconic, the U.S. company that manufactured the highly flammable aluminum cladding allegedly responsible for the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London that eradicated a public housing block, killing 72 people and injuring 70 other tenants. Arconic repeatedly misrepresented to the market its safety protocols and the safety classification of its cladding products. When the truth about Arconic’s unsafe practices emerged, investors lost over $1 billion.

In February 2023, Emma, as Lead Counsel, secured nearly 50% of likely recoverable damages for investors in Deutsche Bank in a case arising from the Bank’s improper anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer procedures. Plaintiffs alleged that, despite the Bank’s representations that it implemented a “robust and strict” Know Your Customer program with “special safeguards” for politically exposed persons (PEPs), defendants repeatedly exempted high-net-worth individuals and PEPs from any meaningful due diligence, enabling their criminal activities through the Bank’s facilities. For example, Deutsche Bank continued “business as usual” with Jeffrey Epstein even after learning that 40 underage girls had come forward with testimony that he had sexually assaulted them.

“My passion and drive to represent shareholders in class action cases was particularly manifest here,” remarked Emma. “Pomerantz delivered an excellent financial result for shareholders against Deutsche Bank for its failure to adhere to good corporate governance by maintaining a long-standing business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein despite knowledge of his rampant sexual abuse. This result advances the cause of good corporate governance that is so essential to our public markets and shareholder rights. I am happy to see Benchmark recognize this aspect of our field. This is a major focus at Pomerantz, and I am grateful to my entire team for their support in pursuing such meaningful legal work.”

Emma’s career has been marked by victories at the highest levels of the U.S. legal field. She was a key member of the Pomerantz team that achieved a record-breaking $3 billion settlement with Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras. During the multi-year litigation, Emma traveled to Brazil to uncover crucial evidence, including conducting depositions with the whistleblower, as well as the former CEO of Petrobras and the company’s chief accountant. In 2021, Emma organized a group of twenty-seven of the foremost U.S. scholars in the field of evidence and spearheaded the effort to submit an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on their behalf to address a critical issue for investors in Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. et al v. Arkansas Teachers Retirement System, et al. Emma and the scholars argued that defendants seeking to rebut the presumption of reliance carry the burden of persuasion, instead of the much lower burden of production. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Emma’s position.

With her award, Emma becomes the second Pomerantz attorney in five years to be named Benchmark’s Plaintiff Litigator of the Year. Managing Partner Jeremy Lieberman received this distinction in 2019. Emma’s other accolades include being named a Plaintiffs’ Attorney Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2023 and appearing on Lawdragon’s list of the Top 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers. In 2018 and 2023, Emma was selected as an MVP in Securities Litigation by Law360. Her win in 2018 made her the first woman to win this highly competitive award since its inception in 2011.