• Won a trial victory on behalf of Mar-Bow Value Partners (Jay Alix) against worldwide consulting giant McKinsey & Co, Inc. McKinsey was forced to withdraw their case after relentless, withering cross-examination of all of its witnesses in its direct case. Mar-Bow won its trial victory without presenting a single affirmative witness. The victory was the culmination of a multi-pronged, multi-jurisdictional effort to bring McKinsey into compliance with bankruptcy disclosure laws which it had been flouting for decades.
• Won a 2022 reversal in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Alix v. McKinsey Co., Inc. et al., a seminal RICO victory.
• Won a total victory in the district court and on appeal to the Second Circuit in defense of a client charged in a civil RICO action with smuggling alcohol to avoid tens of millions of dollars in New York State excise taxes. Acting quickly to reverse the litigation’s momentum, initiated a separate investigation of the plaintiff’s own business practices and uncovered actual smuggling by the plaintiff itself. He then filed a separate litigation against the plaintiff and won an award of his client’s attorney’s fees against the plaintiff.
• Won a judgment exceeding $100 million for a private equity firm in a 10b-5 securities fraud and breach of contract litigation against Cendant Corporation in parallel actions in state and federal court flowing out of Cendant’s criminal accounting fraud.
• In NML Capital v. Argentina, Sean was engaged on an emergency basis, and helped assemble a consortium of financial firms (including Brevan Howard, AllianceBernstein and MFS BlackRock) holding over $1 billion in exchange bonds issued by the Republic of Argentina. Acting under severe time constraints, he won a stay from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit preventing the enforcement of an injunction entered by a federal district court that would have interfered with the Republic’s payments on over $24 billion in exchange bonds. The stay enabled the Republic’s exchange bondholders to receive $3 billion in payments.
• Represented the founder and former president of AIG Global Real Estate in a successful action against AIG for in excess of $250 million in carried interest on all AIG real estate investments around the world.
• Represented the co-founder of a large internet gaming company targeted for prosecution for violation of various state and federal gaming statutes and money laundering. Several years into the investigation, after replacing prior counsel who had recommended a guilty plea, Sean designed and implemented a defense strategy that resulted in the government ultimately declining to indict his client. By contrast, the client’s co-founder, represented by other counsel, pled guilty and agreed to pay a $300 million criminal forfeiture.
• Secured a trial victory in seeking return of funds seized by the IRS, which claimed the client company had structured its bank deposits to evade taxes. After waiving jury trial, Sean employed a technical tax defense, aggressively cross-examining government witnesses and agents. After trial, the court ordered the forfeited funds returned and the client’s legal fees reimbursed.
• Obtained a multimillion-dollar award for an executive who conceived and introduced the Refco / Thomas H. Lee leveraged buyout. The trial was conducted almost entirely by cross-examination of adverse witnesses who denied the involvement of his client. Each successive witness was discredited by relentless cross-examination.
• Represented a prominent private equity firm as the plaintiff in a securities fraud case venued in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. After the original complaint was dismissed, Sean replaced the client’s existing counsel, formulated new causes of action, and filed an amended action. The revamped complaint survived the defendants’ motions to dismiss, and Sean thereafter engineered a favorable eight-figure settlement prior to any deposition discovery.
• Obtained a judgment in favor of client Kingsland Holdings Limited, which served as Independent Third Party in exercising remedies of United Airlines, Inc. associated with contracts effectuating loan obligations in excess of $500 million (loan secured by shares of Colombia-based Avianca Holdings SA). The judgment allowed Kingsland to move toward a foreclosure sale on the Avianca Holdings SA shares securing the loan obligations.
• Represented an insurance industry executive threatened with indictment in a high-profile investigation conducted by the New York Attorney General. Sean replaced prior counsel and persuaded the AG’s office not to indict.

Work performed while at a prior firm.