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Adam Fox is a litigation partner with experience handling and trying to verdict high-stakes controversies spanning a wide range of subject matters. The leader of the firm’s False Advertising Litigation & Protection Practice, as well as the Food & Beverage Litigation Practice, Adam also has substantial experience in complex, often cross-border commercial matters and those involving alleged environmental contamination and exposure. Due to the global scope of Adam’s practice, he maintains offices and is admitted to practice in both California and New York, and even handles disputes abroad. The former Los Angeles office managing partner and deputy practice group leader for Litigation, Adam is currently serving as a member of the firm’s Global Board.
The high-profile matters Adam has handled have garnered substantial national and regional media coverage, including televised interviews and front page coverage in prominent national newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. His cases have also received coverage in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and numerous other publications.
Before entering private practice, Adam served as a judicial clerk for the late Honorable Robert B. Krupansky of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Adam has authored numerous law review articles and other publications. He has also lectured, presented papers or served on speaking panels at the University of Colorado Law School, George Mason University School of Law, Rutgers University School of Law and the University of California at Los Angeles. He has also been a speaker at conferences sponsored by the American Bar Association and the Defense Research Institute.
A graduate of the Riordan Volunteer Leadership Development Program, Adam serves as co-chair of the Los Angeles branch of the National Campaign to Stop Violence and coordinates the Los Angeles office’s pro bono activities.
Adam has been repeatedly recommended in The Legal 500 US, identified by Benchmark: Litigation as a Future Star and recognized by Thomson Reuters as a Southern California Rising Star.
False Advertising Cases
- Obtaining, as lead counsel for Yakult USA, a maker of probiotic drinks, the denial of class certification and later dismissal of a putative federal class action alleging false advertising of the health benefits of consuming its drinks. Also obtained dismissal of the plaintiff’s appeal.
- Securing, as lead counsel, the denial of class certification for an action brought by prison inmates and a criminal defense lawyer against a prison telephone service provider accused of recording privileged calls and falsely advertising the privacy of those calls.
- Resolving by amicable settlement a putative federal class action brought against a premium organic juice company accused of falsely advertising its products as “fresh pressed” and “cold pressed” despite being pasteurized, following a successful discovery strategy exposing the plaintiff as a serial litigant prior to resolution of the class question.
- Obtaining, without payment, the plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal of a putative federal class action alleging false advertising by a leading moving equipment and storage rental company after presenting plaintiff’s counsel with evidence contradicting the plaintiff’s claims.
- Persuading numerous counsel not to file threatened class action lawsuits alleging false advertising against a variety of companies, including a major cosmetics firm, a well-known fast-food chain and an international sandwich chain, among others.
- Serving, prior to settlement, as lead counsel for America’s sugar farmers and refiners in a federal false advertising lawsuit against Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, other processors of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and their trade group, for falsely advertising the various formulations of HFCS as “corn sugar,” “natural” and that “your body can’t tell the difference.”
- Resolving, by amicable settlement, a federal false advertising case on behalf of Breville, a pioneer in fruit and vegetable juicers, and against a group of competitors promoting their line of masticating juicers as extracting and preserving more vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other nutrients than competitive centrifugal juicers.
- Resolving, by amicable settlement, a multijurisdictional trademark infringement case involving Zippo, the iconic, consumer product company and owner of the BLU trademark for its innovative torch flame butane lighters and the maker of BLU electronic cigarettes.
- Having represented Banco Central de Venezuela, the Venezuelan central bank, in a federal lawsuit asserting civil RICO and Lanham Act false advertising claims against a group of defendants allegedly involved in an enterprise using social media tools to misrepresent and manipulate a black market for foreign exchange, exacerbating inflation and robbing the central bank of seigniorage.
- Resolving, by amicable settlement, a federal false advertising case on behalf of a sugar industry trade association and several of its members against a competitor making a popular low-calorie sweetener following the successful pre-trial challenge of one of its experts addressing damages.
Cross-border Complex Cases
- Currently serving as counsel for a Dutch client in parallel arbitrations in Amsterdam and Beijing regarding a dispute over the intellectual property rights governing valuable geosocial networking applications used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
- Securing, as lead trial counsel, a jury verdict for a commercial plaintiff and counterclaim defendant in a multimillion-dollar international contract dispute regarding the importation of goods subjected to antidumping tariffs.
- Orchestrating, as lead counsel, a multimillion-dollar directed verdict for the US subsidiary of a multinational corporation in a complex business dispute involving claims of breach of contract and fraud.
- Obtaining summary judgment for computer motherboard designers against several patent infringement claims for technology essential to their business.
- Obtaining an appellate court mandate vacating an order of a trial court that had denied a motion to dismiss a Japan-based company for lack of personal jurisdiction; although, its only contact with the forum was its US subsidiary.
- Obtaining orders and Special Examiner appointment to compel production of documents and take testimony in the US in aid of legal proceedings pending in the People’s Republic of China.
- Representing entertainment industry players, including a major graphic novel publisher, an international animation company, a world champion boxer, a major recording artist, one of Hollywood’s top actors and the licensing and merchandising company of one of the world’s most famous comedy teams.
Environmental Exposure Cases
- Serving as lead counsel and securing partial summary judgment for the named defendant against a California state agency in a complex, multiparty environmental case involving the alleged contamination of soil and groundwater with numerous solvents and perchlorate resulting from the use of perchloric acid in a recycling process for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene commonly known by the brand name Teflon™.
- Representing a major chemical manufacturer in a 3,500+ plaintiff multidistrict litigation involving claims that drinking water allegedly contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) resulted in serious personal injury. Served in all aspects of the defense, with a particular focus on the scientific and expert issues relating to epidemiology and corporate conduct in light of the historic state of scientific knowledge.
- Obtaining, as lead counsel, the dismissal of a California company and its foreign corporate parent, both of which had been sued in more than 40 coordinated cases in California state court alleging the toxic exposure of thousands of plaintiffs to hexavalent chromium from the clinker dust from the cement operations of several enterprises.
- Securing summary judgment – and obtaining an appellate affirmance of that judgment – for the owner of property adjacent to a US EPA Superfund site in response to charges that contamination had migrated to the site causing injuries to workers there.
- Acting as trial counsel and obtaining a defense jury verdict for a well-known petrochemical company against multiple claims of serious injury arising from alleged toxic exposure to benzene and toluene.
Education
- Cornell University, J.D., senior note editor, Cornell Law Review, 1996
- University of Colorado, B.A., magna cum laude, 1993
Admissions
- New York, 2012
- California, 2002
- Ohio, 1997
Courts
- U.S. Ct. of App., Ninth Circuit
- U.S. Ct. of App., Sixth Circuit
- U.S. Ct. of App., Third Circuit
- U.S. Dist. Ct., C. Dist. of California
- U.S. Dist. Ct., Dist. of Colorado
- U.S. Dist. Ct., E. Dist. of California
- U.S. Dist. Ct., N. Dist. of California
- U.S. Dist. Ct., N. Dist. of Ohio
- U.S. Dist. Ct., S. Dist. of California
- U.S. Dist. Ct., S. Dist. of New York
- U.S. Dist. Ct., E. Dist. of New York
- U.S. Supreme Court
- Author, “Class Action Developments in the United States,” The Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business, Volume 40, 2018.
- Panelist, “GMO Labeling: Analysis of the New Law and Strategies for Practical Implementation,” ACI's Inaugural Advanced Food Law and Regulation Forum, Chicago, IL, May 2017.
- Author, “Representations of Food and Beverage Products in the United States,” The Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business, Volume 38, 2016.
- Speaker, A New Perspective on Food and Beverage False Advertising Claims, Momentum Events Webinar, November 2015.
- Author, Science Is Not Static For The Food And Beverage Industry, Law360, November 2015.
- Author, White Paper – The Role of Science in Burgeoning Health Litigation: A New Perspective on Food and Beverage False Advertising Claims, October 2015.