Alston & Bird won the complete dismissal of an $8 billion lawsuit filed against Bank of Baroda, one of the largest banks in India. The lawsuit concerned the collapse of NMC Health Plc, the largest private health care company in the Middle East. NMC’s founder Dr. Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty and NMC affiliate Neopharma LLC filed suit in New York Supreme Court, Commercial Division alleging that Baroda conspired with NMC’s former executives and others to facilitate and conceal a multiyear financial fraud involving roundtripping, channel stuffing, and fraudulent loans and credit facilities. The plaintiffs alleged that Baroda’s New York branch was the linchpin of the fraud.
After defeating the plaintiffs’ motion for jurisdictional discovery, Alston & Bird, working with Indian law firm Poovayya & Co., successfully argued that the case should be dismissed on the basis of forum non conveniens.
The Alston & Bird team representing Bank of Baroda was led by partners Ted Kang and Steven Campbell, senior associates Gregg Fish and Scott O’Brien, and associates Anne Martin and Theodore Altman. The Poovayya team was led by partner Dharmendra Chatur.