Practices

Anne C. Patin brings more than two decades of experience to her work for employers and other clients as a partner in Seward & Kissel’s Litigation Group. Recognized as a New York-metro Super Lawyer (2014-2022), she has represented parties in a wide range of business disputes, including those involving contract, securities, insurance, partnership, and regulatory issues. Her work spans federal and state litigation, arbitrations, and appeals, and has included such notable engagements as the firm’s defense of a major financial institution in the Enron securities class action, where claims of securities fraud against the firm’s client were ultimately dismissed voluntarily. She has acted as lead trial counsel in several disputes, including an arbitration between a hedge fund manager and the fund’s seed investor.

Anne has particular experience in the area of employment law, where in addition to her litigation experience, she also regularly counsels clients in the financial industry and other businesses on employment practices and policies, including hiring and termination decisions, compliance with discrimination statutes, whistleblower provisions, employee handbooks, family and medical leave, restrictive covenants, employee theft, reductions in force, employment contracts and compensation matters. She also advises on employment issues in advance of M&A transactions. Anne has written and presented on employment-related topics including employer-led investigations and employment issues particular to investment managers.

Anne is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York County Lawyers’ Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

 

Representative Experience

Anne’s employment litigation experience includes:

  • Obtaining an arbitration award and permanent injunction against a former portfolio manager of an asset manager who stole trade secrets for breach of the duty of loyalty and breach of contract;
  • Lead counsel for the General Theological Seminary, an Episcopalian higher educational institution, in favorably resolving a dispute with its faculty who walked out and asserted violations of the National Labor Relations Act and federal and state discrimination laws;
  • Defending a hedge fund and its partners against a multi-million-dollar claim of age discrimination brought by a marketing professional;
  • Defending a prominent Russian investment bank against claims including breach of contract and fraudulent inducement brought by a senior executive hired to open its New York office;
  • Defending a Japanese investment company against claims of reverse national origin and race discrimination;
  • Obtaining a defense jury verdict in a federal employment discrimination suit;
  • Prevailing on an appeal, resulting in the dismissal of claims arising from alleged oral promises of bonus compensation and severance payments;
  • Successfully representing a foreign bank against claims including corporate raiding, and defeating an application for injunctive relief to prevent a change in management by a CDO fund;
  • Successfully enforcing a non-solicitation and non-interference covenant in federal court against a former business partner of our client;
  • Successfully enforcing a “garden leave” notice period against a departing Managing Director of an investment bank; and
  • Suing on behalf of a U.S. broker-dealer accused of fraud and mismanagement in a Wall Street Journal article against the trader who was the source, and defending against the trader’s counter-claims that he was a “whistleblower” under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.