Vincent Briganti

Vincent Briganti

Chairman

about Vincent Briganti

Vincent Briganti is Chairman of Lowey Dannenberg, P.C. He is the head of the Firm’s Commodities and Derivatives Practice Group. Under his guidance, Lowey has earned its position as one of the top financial services antitrust plaintiff’s firms in the world. Mr. Briganti is currently serving as court-appointed lead counsel in numerous class actions against global banking institutions involving antitrust, commodities fraud, and RICO claims.  Throughout his two-decade career at the Firm, Mr. Briganti has achieved substantial victories on behalf of his clients, recovering in excess of a billion dollars as well as significant corporate compliance reforms designed to detect and prevent anticompetitive conduct. 

Some of Mr. Briganti’s notable clients include: the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (“CalSTRS”), the largest educator-only pension fund in the world, and the second largest pension fund in the United States, with almost 1 million members and an investment portfolio worth approximately $213.5 billion; The Treasury Department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is the sole and exclusive custodian of over $100 billion in state monies; Hayman Capital Management, L.P., founded by J. Kyle Bass; legendary commodity investor Richard Dennis; Federated Investors, one of the nation’s largest investment managers, with over $363 billion in assets under management; and many other sophisticated clients. 

Notable Cases:

Bond Rigging: Mr. Briganti represents the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and serves as court appointed co-lead counsel in In re GSE Bonds Antitrust Litigation pending before Judge Jed S. Rakoff in the Southern District of New York. The putative class consists of investors in bonds issued by government sponsored enterprises (“GSE Bonds”) and alleges that the sixteen largest GSE Bond dealers conspired to inflate the prices at which newly-issued GSE Bonds were sold to investors in the secondary market. To date, the class has negotiated recoveries totaling $386.5 million along with commitments by the defendants to implement significant remedial measures intended to detect and prevent future anticompetitive conduct in the GSE Bonds market.

Mr. Briganti serves as sole court-appointed lead counsel in In re Mexican Government Bonds Antitrust Litigation, which alleges a conspiracy by prominent financial institutions, including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, HSBC, and Barclays, among others, to manipulate auctions, allocate customers, and rig bids and offers in the trillion-dollar market for bonds issued by the Mexican federal government. The case is pending before Judge J. Paul Oetken in the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Briganti also serves as court-appointed co-lead counsel in In re European Government Bonds Antitrust Litigation. The case is currently pending before Judge Victor Marrero in the Southern District of New York and involves alleged price-fixing by dealers responsible for bringing bonds issued by Eurozone member countries to the secondary market.

LIBOR and FX Manipulation: Mr. Briganti is currently prosecuting as lead counsel cases involving the alleged manipulation of The London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) for the Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc and Pound Sterling, the Euroyen Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (“TIBOR”), the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“Euribor”), the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (“SIBOR”) and the Singapore Swap Offer Rate (“SOR”), and the Australian Bank Bill Reference Rate (“BBSW”).  Recoveries secured in LIBOR Manipulation cases in the past four years have already exceeded $800 million. 

Mr. Briganti’s unique expertise in financial services and derivative litigation was recently recognized when he was appointed as allocation counsel for the over-the-counter investor class in the multi-billion dollar case In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation pending before Judge Schofield in the Southern District of New York.

Precious Metals Manipulation

Mr. Briganti also serves as court appointed lead counsel in three cases arising from the recently advancing area of anti-spoofing enforcement: Boutchard v. Ghandi et al, Cognata v. JPMorgan Chase & Co. et al., and In re Merrill, BofA, and Morgan Stanley Spoofing Litigation. In 2010, Dodd-Frank amended the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”) with section 4c(a)(5)(C), making it unlawful for any person to engage in ‘spoofing,’ or bidding or offering to buy or sell a financial asset with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution. Boutchard alleges Defendants’ intentional manipulation of E-mini Dow Futures contracts, E-mini S&P 500 Futures contracts, and E-mini NASDAQ 100 Futures contracts. Cognata alleges Defendants’ intentional manipulation of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts and options on such contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (“NYMEX”) and the Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX”).  And Merrill alleges Defendants’ intentional manipulation of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts and options on such contracts traded on the NYMEX and the COMEX. 

Commodities Fraud: Over the course of his career, Mr. Briganti has litigated the most important and complex commodity manipulation actions since the enactment of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), including In re Sumitomo Copper Litigation, Master File No. 96 CV 4854 (S.D.N.Y.) (Pollack, J.), In re Natural Gas Commodity Litigation, Case No. 03 Civ. 6186 (S.D.N.Y.) (Marrero, J.), Hershey v. Pacific Inv. Management Co. LLC, Case No. 1:05-cv-04681 (N.D. Ill.) (Guzman, J.), In re Amaranth Natural Gas Commodity Litigation, Case No. 07 Civ. 6377 (S.D.N.Y.) (Scheindlin, J.), In re Optiver Commodities Litigation, Case No. 08-cv-6842 (S.D.N.Y.) (Preska, J.).

Mr. Briganti continues to actively represent investors in commodity futures manipulation cases, including as lead counsel in a class action against Kraft Foods Group and Mondelez Global for manipulation of the wheat futures market. Ploss v. Kraft Foods Group, Inc. et al., Case No. 15-cv-2937 (N.D. Ill.) (Chang, J.). Mr. Briganti also currently serves as lead trial counsel for the TeraExchange Group in an action charging global financial institutions with antitrust violations in the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Tera Group Inc et al. v. Citigroup Inc. et al., Case No. 17-04302 (S.D.N.Y) (Sullivan, J.).  

Other Notable Achievements

On behalf of Federated Investors, Mr. Briganti obtained emergency injunctive relief to prevent the Government of Argentina from canceling outstanding bonds with a face value of more than $500 million, which had been erroneously tendered by holders of those bonds. Federated Investment Management Company, et al., v. Republic of Argentina, et al., 10 Civ. 4324 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (Griesa, J.).

Mr. Briganti is admitted to both the New York and Connecticut State bars, and is a member of the bars of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd and 8th Circuits, and U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Mr. Briganti received his J.D. from New York Law School in 1996, where he graduated with honors and served as a senior editor of the New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Iona College, with honors, in 1993.

Education:

B.A. Iona College (1993), with honors

J.D. New York Law School (1996), with honors; senior editor of the New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law

Bar/Court Admissions:

New York, Connecticut; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd and 8th Circuits; the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York