Seth Ard secures substantial legal victories for plaintiffs and defendants across the nation. Ard is a seasoned litigator who is often tapped to handle intricate, multi-party cases because of his ability to quickly understand large volumes of complex information and translate it all into compelling arguments to judges, juries and arbitration panels.
Ard has litigated cases across a myriad of practices areas including antitrust, securities, intellectual property, bankruptcy and employment. Likewise, Ard’s client roster has spanned from some of the leading companies in the nation to smaller businesses and individuals. In recent years, Ard has focused a significant portion of his practice in the insurance space – frequently securing major wins for plaintiffs in class actions against insurance companies who have acted fraudulently.
Lawdragon Honors
Ard has secured nearly $1 billion dollars in relief for plaintiffs in insurance class actions who allege their insurance companies fraudulently increased COI rates. For example, he previously represented a certified class of insurance policy owners, helping them achieve what the Court in the Southern District of New York described as “the best settlement pound for pound for the class that I’ve ever seen.” (Read the Court’s statement in full here and more in The Deal’s profile on the litigation here). Also, in 37 Besen Parkway, LLC v. John Hancock Life Insurance Company, Ard secured a $91.25 million settlement (before fees and expenses) for insurance policy owners against John Hancock Life Insurance Company. The Honorable Paul Gardephe described the settlement as a “quite extraordinary . . . result achieved on behalf of the class.” Ard most recently secured a $307.5 million deal for a putative class of plaintiffs who challenged AXA’s 2016 hike of cost on insurance rates on hundreds of elderly insureds.
Serving as court-appointed lead counsel to a certified class of plaintiffs in In Re: NFL Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation, Ard and a team from Susman Godfrey obtained a victory after 3 weeks of trial with a jury finding the NFL engaged in a conspiracy and violated the antitrust laws through its Sunday Ticket offering. During trial, Ard cross examined the former head of CBS Sports, Sean McManus, as well as the defense’s lead expert (Read about his cross of McManus on NBC Sports). The jury awarded $4.7 billion damages, which the trial court vacated on a post-trial motion, while leaving untouched the jury’s determination that the NFL violated two different provisions of the Sherman Act. Proceedings in the matter are ongoing.
In In re LIBOR-Based Financial Instruments Litigation, Ard has secured, to date, $781 million in settlements for plaintiffs who allege several major investment banks were involved in setting LIBOR and manipulating it to their advantage. Since that time, a multitude of lawsuits have been consolidated as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding in which Ard is playing a leading role.
On the defense side, in Jefferies v. NASDAQ, Ard successfully defended NASDAQ and its affiliate IDCG in an arbitration where the plaintiff sought tens of millions of dollars in damages based on a claim that it was fraudulently induced to clear interest rate swaps through the IDCG clearinghouse. After a one-week arbitration, at which Ard put on NASDAQ’s expert and crossed Jefferies’ expert, the Panel issued a decision denying all of Jefferies’ claims and awarding no damages.
Ard also obtained a complete defense victory on summary judgment in trademark infringement dispute, GMA v. Dorfman. Prior to hiring Ard, Dorfman had suffered significant discovery sanctions that threatened to undermine his defense. Once hired, Ard and his team overturned those sanctions, reopened discovery and obtained key admissions, and later won the case on summary judgment.
Before joining the firm, Ard clerked for the Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and for the Honorable Rosemary S. Pooler of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Since 2019, Ard has been named one of the country’s Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers by Lawdragon. He has also repeatedly been recognized as a “Rising Star” in New York by Super Lawyers magazine.