Law firm Quinn Emanuel wins fight over role in data center case
Law firm Quinn Emanuel wins fight over role in data center case By Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Law firm Quinn Emanuel can continue representing a steel plate manufacturer suing Bitdeer Technologies BTDR.O over a data center project in Ohio after a judge denied the cryptocurrency miner's bid to disqualify the firm based on its prior legal work for Bitdeer.
In her ruling, Judge Julie Selmon of the Court of Common Pleas in Monroe, Ohio this week said Bitdeer had previously waived its right to object to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan taking on cases against it.
Quinn Emanuel’s client, American Heavy Plate Solutions, alleges in the Ohio lawsuit that Bitdeer and other defendants are pursuing a data center project in violation of American Heavy's lease rights. The law firm is simultaneously representing Bitdeer in federal court in New York in unrelated litigation.
“Replacing Quinn Emanuel would impose material duplication, delay and substantial expense that would prejudice AHP” in the Ohio case, Selmon wrote in her Sept. 8 order.
Bitdeer and its lawyers at law firms Gibson Dunn and Taft Stettinius did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Quinn Emanuel in a statement on Friday said it welcomed the judge’s ruling. “While adversaries often seek to disqualify us for tactical reasons, we have a robust and principled process for vetting potential conflicts,” the firm said.
The Ohio judge’s ruling comes amid a spate of legal fights in which Quinn Emanuel has fought claims that it has a conflict of interest and should be disqualified. Judges in at least three recent cases have disqualified the firm due to conflicts. Quinn Emanuel in those cases denied the firm had violated conflict-of-interest rules.
Bitdeer in April asked the Ohio court to disqualify Quinn Emanuel from participating in the lawsuit, calling its work for the company in the New York litigation a “clear and disqualifying” conflict.
The firm is “on both sides of the‘v’in matters involving the same business group.” Bitdeer said, arguing that Quinn obtained "confidential financial and operational information" in the New York case that is relevant to the Ohio litigation.
Lawyers for American Heavy Plate Solutions countered that Bitdeer expressly knew the firm might be adverse to it in future matters because it had signed a so-called advance waiver of future conflict claims. Quinn Emanuel set up what it called an “ethical wall” in the firm to separate the legal team representing Bitdeer from the team that is representing American Heavy Plate Solutions in suing Bitdeer.
The judge said Bitdeer’s disqualification bid “depends on a hypothetical, speculative misuse of information that the evidence does not establish and the screen is designed to prevent.”
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(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)