Léa Dartevelle Erhel’s practice focuses on complex commercial litigation, as well as white collar criminal defense and investigations. Léa represents corporations, financial institutions and individuals in a variety of commercial, securities, internal investigations, and bankruptcy-related matters. She has experience in matters involving government and internal investigations, securities fraud, insider trading, bribery under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, RICO actions, as well as enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A French native speaker with a dual law degree, Léa has been involved in transnational litigations, including representing individual foreign litigants in New York Courts and participating in the transnational discovery aspects of litigation.
Léa also has experience representing individuals and companies in various internal investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice and defending whistleblowers in Securities and Exchange Commission investigations.
Work Highlights
- Harbinger Capital Partners, a prominent hedge fund and majority shareholder of LightSquared, Inc., in connection with litigations against LightSquared’s largest creditor in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. In one of these adversary proceedings, the bankruptcy court held – after a trial on the merits – that the creditor breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and the creditor’s misconduct warranted equitable subordination of its interest.
- MBIA, one of the world’s largest monoline insurers, in litigation brought by 18 of the world’s largest banks seeking to overturn MBIA’s corporate restructuring which, with the approval of the New York Department of Insurance, established a separate company for MBIA’s municipal bond insurance business. After a several-week evidentiary proceeding, the New York Supreme Court upheld MBIA’s restructuring, and MBIA received $1.7 billion in cash and a $500 million line of credit for its municipal bond insurance business.