Christian Levis is a partner at Lowey Dannenberg, P.C., and head of the firm’s data breach and privacy practice group. He also has extensive experience litigating class actions across various practice areas, including antitrust, commodities, and consumer protection. Mr. Levis has litigated against some of the largest corporations in the world and has achieved substantial recoveries on behalf of plaintiffs such as the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (“CalSTRS”), the nation’s largest educator-only pension fund, and the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Notable Cases:

Data Breach & Privacy: Mr. Levis serves as class counsel for the certified class in In re Google Assistant Privacy Litig., Case No. 19-cv-04286 (N.D. Cal.), which includes all purchasers of Google-made devices (e.g., Google Home speakers, and Pixel phones) in the United States. The case centers on Google alleged unauthorized recording of Google Assistant users in the absence of “Hey Google” or “Ok Google” and subsequent use of that audio. He also leads the prosecution of a similar privacy action arising out of the alleged unauthorized recording of consumers by Apple through its Siri virtual assistant. See Lopez v. Apple, Inc., Case No. 19-cv- 04577 (N.D. Cal.); In re Google Assistant Privacy Litig., Case No. 19-cv-04286 (N.D. Cal.).

Mr. Levis is co-lead counsel for the class of financial institutions allegedly impacted by the breach of convenience store and gas chain Wawa’s payment card system in In re Wawa Data Sec. Litig., Case No. 19-cv-06019 (GEKP) (E.D. Pa.), which is estimated to have compromised over 30 million records. In March 2023, financial institution plaintiffs announced a settlement with Wawa valued at $28.5 million.

Bond Rigging: Mr. Levis represents the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as court appointed co-lead counsel in In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 19-cv-1704 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y.) (“GSE Bonds”), a class action against sixteen of the world’s largest banks alleging a conspiracy to fix the prices of debt securities issued by government sponsored entities. Plaintiffs reached settlements totaling more than $386 million, resulting in a substantial recovery for bond investors nationwide. These settlements also obligated defendants to adopt and maintain remedial measures, including compliance reforms designed to detect and prevent anticompetitive conduct in the GSE bond market.  Mr. Levis and 4 other Lowey Dannenberg attorneys received the American Antitrust Institute award for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Law Practice as recognition for these significant results.

Benchmark Manipulation: Mr. Levis played an integral role in several class actions involving the manipulation of IBOR-denominated financial instruments, in which Lowey served as either sole or co-lead counsel. See, e.g., Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., Case No. 12-cv-03419 (S.D.N.Y); Sullivan v. Barclays PLC, Case No. 13-cv-02811 (S.D.N.Y.); In re: London Silver Fixing Ltd. Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 14-md-02573 (S.D.N.Y.); Sonterra Capital Master Fund Ltd. v. Credit Suisse Group AG, Case No. 15-cv-871 (S.D.N.Y).  Collectively these actions have resulted in over $820 million in settlements.

Consumer Protection: Mr. Levis is several consumer class actions involving emerging technology and consumer privacy issues, including In re Apple Processor Litig., Case No. 18-cv-0147 (N.D. Cal.), a proposed class action against Apple for using allegedly defective central processing units in its devices. In appointing Lowey Dannenberg as co-lead counsel in In re Apple Processor Litig., Case No. 18-cv-0147 (N.D. Cal.), ECF No. 40, the court praised Lowey for its “detailed investigation and analysis of the design, manufacture, and operation of the Apple CPUs.”

Other Notable Achievements:

Mr. Levis is a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Technology and the Legal Profession. Mr. Levis also manages Lowey Dannenberg’s e-discovery infrastructure and is an expert in the use of analytics and technology-assisted document review in large class actions. For example, Mr. Levis recently presented on the “State of eDiscovery During the COVID-19 Pandemic” and has lectured on the use analytics-based workflows in class actions,  presenting “An Analytics Cookbook for Complex Cases” at a leading industry conference after developing a workflow that saved the class in Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., Case No. 12-cv-03419 (S.D.N.Y) an estimated $2.5 million. In addition to his e-discovery expertise, Mr. Levis has utilized his computer programming skills to develop custom software to assist clients in identifying potential damages from market manipulation.

Mr. Levis was selected as a Rising Star in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 edition of Super Lawyers.

Background:

Prior to joining Lowey Dannenberg, P.C., Mr. Levis clerked for the Honorable Jessica R. Mayer in the Superior Court of New Jersey and was involved in several mass tort cases involving pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Mr. Levis is a graduate of Fordham Law School, were he was the associate editor of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. He also served as the interschool competitions director for the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center, winning two national trial competitions, in addition to an individual best advocate award. In recognition of these accomplishments, Mr. Levis received the Abraham Abramovsky Award for outstanding achievement in trial advocacy in 2012.

Mr. Levis received his undergraduate degrees in Biology and English from New York University, where his research focused on statistical modeling of Tuberculosis infection rates among members of New York City’s homeless population.

He also teaches as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at Fordham University School of Law.

Publications & Presentations:

• Christian Levis, Amanda Fiorilla & Luke Goveas, Data Breach Plaintiffs Still Face Circuit Conflict on Standing, Bloomberg Law (June 15, 2021, 4:00 AM),
  https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/data-breach-plaintiffs-still-face-circuit-conflict-on-standing?context=search&index=2.

• Christian Levis, Amanda Fiorilla, Some Credit Unions Have Received Settlements; Should You Take Your Situation to Court?, CU Management, (Mar. 10, 2020),
  https://www.cumanagement.com/articles/2020/03/recovering-card-losses-after-third-party-breaches.