Agnieszka Fryszman (L’96), a partner at Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll, is one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers against corporate abuse.

As founder and chair of the firm’s Human Rights practice group, Agnieszka champions the rights of victims of injustice and abuse against corporate giants and foreign powers. Throughout her legal career, she has brought civil suits on behalf of victims of torture, human trafficking, extrajudicial killings, and forced labor.Agnieszka Fryszman Headshot

As an evening student at Georgetown Law, Agnieszka connected with lawyers at Cohen Milstein who were litigating cases against corporations that had benefitted from forced and slave labor during the Holocaust. Intrigued by the ability to use legal skills to remedy some of the injustices that occurred during Nazi-era Germany, Agnieszka joined the firm after graduation and worked on the legal team that successfully held German and Austrian companies to account for profiting from such forced and slave labor, eventually reaching a settlement worth 10 billion Deutsche Marks for 1.5 million survivors around the world.

Following this historic win, Agnieszka was determined to continue the campaign against corporate impunity for human rights abuse, and she successfully persuaded Cohen Milstein to start a practice group dedicated to human rights — a group that is now consistently recognized as one of the best private international human rights practices in the world.

For over twenty-five years, Agnieszka has worked on and won some of the most complex human rights strategic litigation claims in U.S. federal courts. In her current work involving the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, Agnieszka represents Cambodians who sought employment at a Thai factory but who ended up being trafficked into forced labor. She also recently brought suit on behalf of men from Nepal who had agreed to work for a luxury hotel in Jordan but who, upon arrival, were divested of their passports, locked in a compound, forced to work at U.S. military bases, and, for many, eventually killed by insurgents. Agnieszka has also been involved in landmark cases regarding fishing boat slavery, comfort women, the victims of 9/11, and Guantánamo Bay detainees.

Recently, Agnieszka and her team worked on a historic case involving Indonesian villagers and their families against ExxonMobil. The villagers alleged that the soldiers of the Indonesian military retained by ExxonMobil to protect its facilities in Aceh had tortured, raped, or killed the villagers’ relatives. After more than two decades of fighting on behalf of her clients and just one week before the trial, Agnieszka and her team secured a historic settlement from ExxonMobil, empowering the Indonesian villagers to receive the recompense and recognition that they had sought for years.

The Risks and Rewards of Fighting for Justice

Agnieszka says that the most rewarding part of her job is the ability to help people claim their rights and find vindication, particularly in a world with an “enormous amount of unfairness and injustice.” With her legal acumen and commitment to justice for the underserved, she is able to “help people who were wronged recognize that they have rights that can be enforced” and assist them in challenging big corporations despite the obstacles put in their path. Her recent success helping Indonesian villagers triumph over ExxonMobil is a prime example of this achievement. Agnieszka finds it especially uplifting to see how her legal success stories have helped her clients and their communities improve their lives in the aftermath of horrendous acts of violence and injustice. One woman in a trafficking case in Nepal, Agnieszka says, was initially homeless and penniless. But with the settlement that Agnieszka was able to secure, she now lives in a three-story house and her children go to an American school and are fluent in English. Because of the settlement, “the whole trajectory of their lives has been changed,” says Agnieszka.

However, being at the forefront of human rights law and having to use new and innovative strategies also comes with a cost. “You inevitably make mistakes, and you’re not the person that bears the cost of them,” says Agnieszka. Agnieszka was involved in the first case of its kind against a corporation for alleged human rights violations overseas, and she believes she would take a different tack if litigating it again. Though their strategy was not wrong, she clarifies, the law developed in another direction, and the case might have been successful if it had been the fifth case of its kind, with better-developed law. Cases like these, she says, “carry the weight of people’s hopes and expectations.” If you lose because you were first and the law needed to be amended or the breadth of case law expanded, you are not the one paying the price of the learning process; the people who were harmed do, Agnieszka explains. “I always want to win, and I always want to win big for my clients. But you can’t always win. It’s frustrating.”

Former President Trump and his legal team have decided against appealing a court’s decision that found he is not immune from civil lawsuits that blame him for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, after they previously signaled he would file an appeal.

Trump’s decision to not take his broader immunity claim to the Supreme Court means lawsuits seeking to hold him accountable for his role on Jan. 6 can move forward.

A Colorado federal judge Tuesday gave initial approval to class settlements with two meat producers and a consulting company, requiring $11.25 million in payments to resolve claims that they participated in a nationwide scheme to fix and depress wages for meat plant workers.

In an order, U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer advanced a deal for Seaboard Foods LLC and its owner Triumph Foods LLC to pay $10 million into a settlement fund and supply the plaintiffs with documents, data, depositions and witnesses to be used as evidence against the remaining defendants.

Perdue Foods LLC has also agreed to cooperate with the plaintiffs and pay $1.25 million to class members, an estimated tens of thousands of workers at meat processing plants across the country.

Tuesday’s order also stayed the proceedings against the companies and a data consulting firm that allegedly helped the meat producers exchange compensation data, Webber Meng Sahl and Co. Inc.

The approvals come as Colorado-based JBS USA decided earlier this month to settle and avoid a trial in the sprawling November 2022 suit, which accused more than a dozen meat processing companies of sharing pay studies and data to fix wages at plants across the country.

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The proposed class is represented by Shana E. Scarlett, Rio S. Pierce, Abby R. Wolf, Steve W. Berman, Elaine Byszewski and Abigail D. Pershing of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, George F. Farah, Rebecca Chang, Nicholas J. Jackson, Martha E. Guarnieri, Simon Wiener and William H. Anderson of Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Brent W. Johnson, Benjamin D. Brown, Robert A. Braun, Alison S. Deich, Zachary Glubiak, Zachairy I. Krowitz and Nina Jaffe-Geffner of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Brian D. Clark, Stephen J. Teti, Arielle S. Wagner and Eura Chang of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, and Candice J. Enders and Julia R. McGrath of Berger Montague PC.

With a Department of Justice lawsuit appearing imminent, Apple (AAPL) may have provided last-minute evidence to bolster the DOJ’s case against its potentially anticompetitive behavior in the wake of the Epic Games trial.

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“Whether Apple’s “compliance” with Judge Gonzalez Roger’s order is anticompetitive is a trickier question than you might think,” said Daniel McCuaig, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll who previously served as an attorney in the DOJ’s antitrust division. But DOJ lawyers “won’t be amused. Apple’s demonstration of disdain for both competition and a court’s lawful order surely makes the Division at least marginally more likely to file suit. And I would expect the episode to be included in the complaint – it offers a compelling narrative of a company that not only believes itself to be above the law but also will require a very clear and firm injunction to convince it otherwise . . . The remedy that Apple now is flouting could have been imposed for a Sherman Act violation. In which case, Apple achieving the same result by these different means would properly be viewed as anticompetitive.”

Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC’s securities team made headlines last year by securing one of the largest securities class actions recoveries of all time for Wells Fargo investors and by introducing major corporate governance reforms at several financial institutions after their alleged attempts to obstruct the stock loan market, earning the firm a spot among Law360’s 2023 Securities Groups of the Year.

The $1 billion settlement — the sixth-largest securities settlement of the last decade — between Wells Fargo and its investors was finalized in September, and Cohen Milstein served as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. The suit alleged the bank and its top executives made false and misleading statements about their compliance with consent orders put in place after the bank was found in 2016 to have engaged in widespread consumer abuses, including opening millions of unauthorized customer accounts.

The deal is the largest security settlement to not involve a financial restatement by the institution or enforcement actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or the U.S. Department of Justice. Steven J. Toll, co-chair of Cohen Milstein’s securities practice, said that makes the recovery especially significant, since accounting corrections and legal action from the government are typically the hallmark of securities cases.

“We didn’t have those factors that make cases easier to win, so that heightens the value of what we were able to achieve here,” Toll said. “It was all through our own work and research and analysis of all the issues that was able to get us such a large number.”

Wells Fargo shareholders said they incurred significant losses in March 2020 when reports from the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services and subsequent congressional hearings revealed that Wells Fargo had “clearly demonstrated an unwillingness and inability to stop harming its customers” and that its remediation plans fell “woefully short” of regulators’ expectations.

Wells Fargo argued investors could not prove that statements about progress toward overhauling its risk management policies were false or made to intentionally mislead investors.

Toll said the timing of the alleged stock declines, which occurred around the time COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, was another hurdle in the suit.

“It was a very unusual challenge to confront, and they kept arguing why the damages and thus the recovery and settlement should be much lower, but we were able to still get a very substantial settlement,” he said.

Cohen Milstein helped investors secure another big payout last year in an anti-competitive class action against defendants Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan and EquiLend. Including a previous $81 million settlement with Credit Suisse, the court has preliminarily approved more than $580 million in cash payments.

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Many of Cohen Milstein’s cases, including the Boeing suit, the Wells Fargo suit and the antitrust financial suit, are led by institutional investors. Julie Reiser, also Cohen Milstein’s securities practice co-chair, said one of the most rewarding parts of her job is knowing people will have the financial security to retire when large settlements are paid out.

“Working with pension funds to collect money and to make sure they’re made whole when there’s fraud is really motivating for me and my colleagues, and that helps make our practice stronger,” Reiser said.

Current and former New York Life Insurance workers asked a federal court Monday to approve a $19 million deal in a proposed class action alleging the insurance giant unlawfully kept underperforming proprietary investment options in two employee retirement plans.

Plan participants leading the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit said in a motion for preliminary approval that the settlement is in line with pacts previously approved in similar suits and avoids the costs and risks associated with continuing the complex litigation. The filing comes just over a month after workers and New York Life told the court they had agreed to resolve the suit and needed time to hammer out details.

According to Monday’s motion, the $19 million settlement totals approximately 20% to 25% of the alleged losses that workers claimed were due to the company’s mismanagement of two New York Life retirement plans. Plan participants said they intend to ask that up to 33% of the settlement go toward attorney fees as well as $10,000 in service awards to each of the 10 named plaintiffs.

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The proposed class is represented by Kai Richter, Jacob T. Schutz, Eleanor Frisch, Michelle C. Yau, Daniel R. Sutter, Caroline E. Bressman and Michael Eisenkraft of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

Grubhub’s business is “suffused with deception,” Los Angeles County said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, claiming the food delivery service has long misled customers about prices and driver benefits and imposed “abusive” policies on restaurants.

The county accused Grubhub of false and deceptive advertising, misrepresentation and unfair business practices that harm consumers, delivery drivers and restaurants, according to the complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The county pointed to search results that consumers see when they browse the app. Those results are based in part on undisclosed restaurant advertising payments rather than neutral factors, such as how close a restaurant is, the county said. Consumers are also misled about the prices of their orders and the benefits delivery drivers receive, it claimed.

For instance, Grubhub says consumers can place delivery orders online free, but then it charges them fees on those orders at checkout, Los Angeles County said. The company also misrepresents its “driver benefits fee,” deceptively implying that the fee provides healthcare benefits to drivers and that drivers no longer need to be tipped, according to the suit.

The suit also says Grubhub subjects restaurants to “an undisclosed and abusive policy” under which Grubhub resolves customer complaints by issuing refunds – using restaurant money – without first getting the restaurant’s permission, the county said.

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California is represented by Jon Scott Kuhn, Andrea Ross, Cesar J. Del Peral and Ida Anbarian of the Los Angeles County Office of County Counsel and Brian E. Bowcut and Peter Ketcham-Colwill of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

L.A. County is suing Grubhub, alleging that the company violated state laws that prohibit false advertising.

The price of the turkey on rye half-sandwich from Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant in Los Angeles, purchased through the delivery app Grubhub, starts around $17.

But at checkout, the costs mount. With additional fees and sales tax, the cost of a sandwich delivery can hit over $26.00. Plus tip.

L.A. County says it amounts to an illegal “bait-and-switch.”

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against Grubhub, county lawyers argue the food delivery company has repeatedly flouted a state law barring false advertising by promoting meals at a cheaper price than what customers see at the checkout page.

“Grubhub has built this vast marketplace through practices that mislead consumers and restaurants and put the squeeze on the company’s delivery drivers,” the lawsuit says. “Multiple aspects of Grubhub’s business — and every transaction for food delivery — are suffused with deception.”

A Grubhub spokesperson said in a statement the company plans to “aggressively defend” itself in court.

“We’ve sought to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Los Angeles County Counsel’s office to explain our business and identify any areas for improvement,” a company spokesperson wrote. “We are disappointed they have moved forward with this lawsuit because our practices have always complied with applicable law, and in any event, many of the allegations are incorrect or have been discontinued.”

The lawsuit refers to a Grubhub webpage with a banner that says customers can “order online for free” at Los Angeles restaurants near them. In reality, the lawsuit says, they cannot.

Grubhub said it is working on removing the language “from all existing materials.”

“This lawsuit sends a clear message: Los Angeles County will not tolerate businesses that deceive consumers, take advantage of restaurants, and exploit the drivers who work hard to provide a valued service,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the board chair, in a statement.

It’s the latest government action aimed at preventing companies from hitting consumers with surprise charges. A new state law goes into effect this summer prohibiting last-minute “junk fees” across a long list of businesses, including delivery apps. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who co-sponsored the measure, has promised “the price Californians see will be the price they pay.”

The attorney general’s office has said that once the law goes into effect, delivery apps cannot tack on miscellaneous fees at the end of the transaction.

The county’s lawsuit argues the status quo hurts not only Grubhub’s customers, but also the drivers and restaurants who serve them.

The UFC is potentially being sued by over a thousand fighters.

The ongoing UFC Antitrust lawsuit has been elevated to class-action, after a court ruling from Judge Boulware on August 9.

The UFC Antitrust Lawsuit Explained Simply

Back in December 2014, a group of MMA fighters — some still active — joined together to file a class-action lawsuit against the UFC and its parent company Zuffa LLC. These representatives, like Cung Le, Nate Quarry, Jon Fitch, and others, believe that the UFC used “improper strategies” to control the market for MMA fighter services.

In essence, they’re alleging the UFC paid them a lot less than they should have, and that the UFC has formed a monopsony on the professional MMA market, which hurts all MMA fighters as a result.

This group of fighters is trying to represent around 1,200 other current and former UFC fighters.

After fighting in court for more than six years, in December 2020, the court said it’s planning to officially recognize this group as a “class” of fighters and shared its written opinion about it. If the class is officially recognized, the fighters leading the lawsuit and their lawyers will represent the whole group of ~1,200 fighters.

“One of their goals is to recover money for all 1,200 fighters. Another goal is to force the UFC to change the way it does business.” (via UFCclassaction.com)

Well, the court has now recognised the “class” to represent, which is the “bout class”, or fighters “who competed in one or more live professional UFC-promoted bouts taking place or broadcast in the United States from December 16, 2010 to June 30, 2017.”

After five-and-a-half long years, the judge overseeing the antitrust lawsuit against the UFC finally released his order granting class certification status to the plaintiff fighters seeking up to $1.6 billion in damages.

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware of Las Vegas, NV certified a “bout class” of over 1,200 fighters who fought for the promotion between December 16, 2010 and June 30, 2017 with claims the UFC anticompetitively foreclosed rival MMA promoters and suppressed fighter pay through the use of long-term exclusive contracts, coercive conduct, and the elimination or acquisition of competitors. Boulware also declined to certify an “identity class,” which claimed the same UFC conduct had anticompetitively reduced licensing rights compensation, resulting in the removal of former middleweight title challenger Nate Quarry from the case.

Boulware’s order was the first real sign of life the case had seen in nearly three years since a December 2020 hearing in which the judge told participants they would have his order “on Monday.”

Well after what turned out to be a very long weekend, the judge’s official reasoning for granting class certification was finally published. This is important since UFC attorneys have two weeks to dissect all 80 pages, find any issues to raise on appeal with the Ninth Circuit, and file their Rule 23(f) petition. This should put their deadline at Wednesday, August 23.

Judge Boulware’s Rebukes

In reviewing Boulware’s order, it’s apparent that while he may have become proficient on the business side of the sport, he’s still a novice when it comes to the MMA fight game. When describing the sport of MMA, he neglected to mention chokes – by far the most common method of submission – in the list performance factors that can lead to a tapout. But on the business and legal side of his order, he didn’t pull any punches, so much so that it felt at times as if we were reading the plaintiffs’ complaint or one of their expert witness reports.

Boulware methodically went through each element of the Daubert and class certification standards plaintiffs had to overcome to show that their expert testimony was “relevant and reliable” and their evidence “capable” of resolving common issues related to the plaintiffs’ claims. He was meticulous as he described his reasoning for finding the plaintiffs had satisfied their burden with the elements required for class certification: Numerosity, Commonality, Typicality, Adequacy, and then also Predominance.

In describing the mechanisms by which the UFC purportedly acquired and maintained monopsony power in the fighter labor market, Boulware agreed with plaintiffs that the relevant market is “for Elite Professional MMA Fighter services” in the United States, or possibly North America. He concluded the UFC had dominant market shares in this market, ranging from 71-99% depending on the time frame and how they were measured.

The UFC has consistently argued its business acumen is one of the key elements leading to its success and high market shares, but Boulware wasn’t remotely persuaded. He seemed to show disdain and almost appeared to make fun of this “nebulous factor” and “less cogent alternative explanation” for how the UFC’s market power was obtained.

In explaining how the UFC’s power was allegedly maintained, Boulware described “ruthless” and “brutal coercive tactics” such as putting a fighter “in a prelim against a really tough guy for his last fight” if he turned down a contract renewal offer.

He noted former UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s testimony, “I always renegotiate before the last fight,” and former welterweight title challenger and named plaintiff Jon Fitch’s that “they do that to everybody. We’re going to hold your bout agreement until you sign your extension. We won’t allow you to become a free agent.”

But the most damning excerpt from the record may have come from the UFC’s former Vice President of Business, Legal and Government Affairs, Michael Merch, when he wrote, “if a fighter is successful under a 4 fight deal, we typically negotiate a new agreement after the 3rd fight so he never will see the end of his contract and, assuming the fighter is successful, or at least competitive, that is the process that will continue thereafter.”

As a result, Boulware found the UFC had made its fighters’ exclusive contracts “effectively perpetual.”

“Record evidence indicates both that these tactics were intentionally and consistently used by management to maintain contractual control of fighters and to send a message to fighters that they were essentially stuck with UFC for the life of their careers,” Boulware wrote. “The structure of these deals, particularly the fact that the fighter was only paid when they fought, meant that these tactics were a credible threat to every fighter under contract with [the UFC].”

One puzzling part of Boulware’s analysis is that it was mostly observational from testimony and emails. Hard data has also been made public in the case showing the UFC doesn’t systematically bench fighters who refuse to renegotiate on the last fight of their contract, and Boulware made no mention of it. The reason is unclear but it may have something to do with the standard used for class certification.

While Boulware’s findings were harsh, he also repeatedly emphasized his determinations were made by a preponderance of the evidence “at the class certification stage,” where “factual and merits-based” UFC counterarguments were not considered.