Susan Saltzstein recently was appointed co-head of Skadden’s Complex Litigation and Trials Group in New York and also serves as co-deputy of the firm’s top-ranked nationwide Securities Litigation Group.
Saltzstein’s sophisticated litigation practice focuses on the representation of U.S. and global corporations (public and private), financial institutions and individual clients embroiled in complex litigation in federal and state courts. Her litigation experience is broad-based in scope and industry and includes class and derivative actions, board representations, stockholder lawsuits and SEC investigations. Bet-the-company litigation is one of the mainstays of her practice.
Lawdragon Honors
Saltzstein has represented clients in some of the most influential cases in the securities class action space, including in seminal matters that have shaped the legal landscape such as defendants in WorldCom, Inc. class actions (the largest securities case ever filed at the time) and UniCredit S.p.A. in its defense of multibillion-dollar, precedent-setting Bernie Madoff-related litigations, and regularly defends clients in high-profile multijurisdictional disputes.
Saltzstein has represented numerous clients over the course of her three-decade-plus career. Among others, she has counseled American Express; Ann Taylor; Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.; CannTrust; Cheniere Energy, Inc.; Covisint Corporation; CVI Investments, Inc.; DD Global; E.Merge Technology Acquisition Corp.; Federal Express; Foot Locker Inc.; Getty Images; Grab Holdings Limited; Inovalon Holdings, Inc.; Mercury Systems; Nano-X Imaging Ltd.; Nokia; Nortel Networks S.A.; Pioneer Alternative Investments; Synergy’s CEO; Unilever PLC; Viacom; certain officers and directors of VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings; and numerous syndicates of underwriters in securities class actions arising from public offerings, including Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, among others.
In addition, she has led the representation of clients embroiled in event-driven litigation, including Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in connection with securities and derivative litigation arising out of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Portland General Electric in a lawsuit involving purported trading losses and Hawaiian Electric Industries in matters concerning the 2023 Maui wildfires.
Recently, Saltzstein was appointed to the Standing Committee of the Federal Judiciary, the committee responsible for rating all prospective nominees, including Supreme Court justices, to the federal bench. She serves as co-chair of the Cambridge Forum on Securities Litigation, an invitation-only group comprised of attorneys at the top of their field who have been practicing members of the securities defense bar for 15 years or more. Saltzstein is frequently invited to speak on industry panels, including at the invitation of plaintiffs’ firms, to share and debate perspectives on important developments in the securities class and derivative action space. She previously served on the Attorneys’ Advisory Committee of the Southern District of New York, a committee that had provided assistance to members of the judiciary serving on the Judicial Improvements Committee. In this role, she co-chaired the Motions Committee and helped draft procedure rules that have been implemented by district court judges in a pilot program directed at complex commercial disputes.