Lowey Dannenberg has unparalleled experience and success prosecuting the most important commodity manipulation class actions since the enactment of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Currently, Lowey Dannenberg partners Vincent Briganti and Geoffrey Horn serve as co-lead counsel in In re Optiver Commodities Litigation, Case No. 08 CV 6842 (LAP) (S.D.N.Y.), a proposed class action involving the alleged manipulation of NYMEX (light sweet crude oil, heating oil and gasoline) futures contracts prices by Optiver US, LLC and other Optiver defendants.

Currently, Lowey Dannenberg partners Vincent Briganti and Geoffrey Horn serve as co-lead counsel in In re Amaranth Natural Gas Commodity Litigation, Case No. 07 Civ. 6377 (SAS) (S.D.N.Y.), a proposed class action involving the manipulation of New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) natural gas futures and options contract prices in 2006 by the Amaranth Group, one of the country’s largest hedge funds, prior to its widely-publicized collapse in September 2006.

The firm also serves as co-lead counsel in the recently-settled case In re Natural Gas Commodity Litigation, Case No. 03 CV 6186 (VM) (S.D.N.Y.), which involved manipulation by more than twenty large energy companies of the price of natural gas futures contracts traded on the NYMEX. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants, including El Paso, Duke, Reliant, and AEP Energy Services, Inc., manipulated the price of natural gas by making false reports of the price and volume of their trades to publishers of natural gas price indices across the United States. Lowey Dannenberg won significant victories throughout litigation including: defeating defendants’ motions to dismiss, prevailing on a motion to enforce subpoenas issued by two publishers of natural gas price indices for the production of trade report data, and, most importantly, a decision certifying a class of NYMEX natural gas futures traders who were harmed by defendants’ manipulation of the price of natural gas futures contracts traded on the NYMEX from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2002. The total settlement obtained in this complex litigation—almost $101 million—is the second largest class-action recovery in the history of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Lowey Dannenberg also previously served as one of the three members of the plaintiff's Executive Committee in In re Sumitomo Copper Litigation, an action alleging manipulation of COMEX copper futures and options prices, which resulted in a settlement in excess of $145,000,000, the largest recovery ever in a commodities manipulation case. 182 F.R.D. 85, 95 (S.D.N.Y. 1998). The court there specifically found, "Executive Committee counsel appointed by the Court have conducted previous antitrust, securities and commodity futures class actions in this circuit and have vigorously investigated, developed and prosecuted the claims in this litigation." Id.

Lowey Dannenberg also represents plaintiff Richard Hershey, one of two certified class representatives, in Kohen v. Pacific Investment Management Corp., Case No. 05-C-4681 (RAG) (N.D. Ill.), a class action case alleging manipulation of the multi-billion-dollar U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note futures contracts traded on the CBOT during May and June 2005. On July 31, 2007, the Court denied defendants’ motions to dismiss and granting plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. 244 F.R.D. 469 (N.D. Ill. 2007).