Patrick Gunn

A partner and trial lawyer in Goodwin’s Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution group, Patrick Gunn represents companies and individuals in the technology, venture capital and real estate industries in complex business disputes – including commercial contract litigation, shareholder derivative actions, trade secret disputes and partnership disputes. He has particular expertise in real estate, and for 30 years has represented sponsors, developers, owners, and investors in disputes involving acquisitions, dispositions, development, leasing, and financing.

Patrick is routinely engaged to act as lead counsel in complex, high profile, and contentious matters, and regularly tries matters to final judgment or award. The Daily Journal selected his jury trial victory for California businessman and philanthropist Ernest Rady for its exclusive Top 10 Defense Verdicts list.

Patrick’s representative matters include:

• Represented Seecon, Northern California’s largest independent developer of single-family homes, in a $100 million+ governance dispute with its former CEO*
• Represented virtual meeting platform Zoom in a high-profile coverage dispute with its cyber insurance carriers seeking reimbursement of $90 million+ in defense and settlement costs incurred in connection with lawsuits and investigations arising from alleged data security and privacy issues*
• Won complete dismissal for venture capital fund e.ventures in a trade secret lawsuit concerning ownership of NGINX web server software claimed to have been developed by Rambler, a Russian internet company*
• Defended Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison and affiliated persons in a Palo Alto real estate development dispute concerning The Epiphany Hotel, obtained complete dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint for breach of contract and won a follow-up motion for attorneys’ fees, obtaining an award of $3.1 million in favor of the client*
• Defended Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a high-profile real property dispute; after 18 months of litigation and successive pretrial motions challenging the authenticity of the evidence, the plaintiff was forced to abandon the lawsuit with no payment of any kind from the client*
• Won a jury verdict in favor of billionaire Ernest Rady, a prominent San Diego business leader and founder of the prominent REIT American Assets, defeating breach of contract and derivative claims seeking more than $270 million in damages*
• Represented Chinese publicly listed real estate development company Shirong Zhayoe in a breach of fiduciary duty suit against a former chairman seeking return of more than $100 million in looted corporate funds; based on forensic analysis of fund transfers between China, Macau, Hong Kong, the UK and the US, won a preliminary injunction freezing more than $30 million in real estate assets in California and London*
• Represented Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the top life sciences real estate investment trust in the US, in a variety of development and leasing disputes – including a dispute over termination of an agreement to develop a 500,000-square-foot, San Francisco-headquartered campus for Pinterest*
• Won an arbitration award for graphics chip maker NVIDIA Corporation, defeating a real estate developer’s claim for a $20 million fee allegedly owed in connection with the development of a multibillion dollar headquarters campus in Silicon Valley*
• Defended the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (CGLIC) in a lawsuit concerning the redevelopment of the Hazard Center in San Diego, in which the plaintiff sought more than $100 million from the client; two weeks into a two-month jury trial, negotiated a favorable settlement that resulted in resolution of the entire case*
• Won a complete victory for Rappi, Latin America’s largest on-demand super app, by obtaining dismissal of a high-stakes trade secret misappropriation case that contested the invention and ownership of Rappi’s core business model*
• Secured an order in favor for life sciences venture capital firm Alexandria Venture Investments after trial in Delaware Chancery Court, compelling the defendant biotech company to disclose books and records relating to alleged mismanagement and self-dealing by directors*
• Won an arbitration award for Goldman Sachs in a dispute concerning suitability of asset allocations in managed investment accounts; the award dismissed all claims against Goldman Sachs and expunged all mention of those claims from the registration records of the client’s employees*
• Defended Silicon Valley venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) in a derivative suit arising out of alleged mismanagement of a failed incubator, in which the plaintiff claimed tens of millions of dollars in damages; negotiated nuisance value settlement and dismissal of all claims by the plaintiff*
• Won an arbitration award for fabless semiconductor firm Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC), defeating a claim for an eight-figure breakup fee following a failed M&A transaction*
• Won a jury verdict in a film distribution dispute for German producer CCC Filmkunst, in which the producer defeated all claims by the sales agent and obtained judgment in its favor and against the sales agent on CCC’s cross-complaint*
• Won judgment in a breach of fiduciary duty suit for a minority shareholder in an automobile franchisor corporation; obtained a ruling piercing the corporate veil and imposing individual liability for fraud on the defendant’s shareholders*
• Won a multimillion-dollar arbitration award for a client in a dispute arising out of construction of a Silicon Valley estate property*
• Defended Tymphany, a Hong Kong-based manufacturer of network audio equipment, in arbitration over patent licensing fees; after the arbitration hearing but before entry of award, negotiated a settlement in which the claimant dismissed all claims, and the client paid just 10% of the claimant’s prehearing demand*
• Defended a real estate syndicator in a series of state law securities fraud actions; obtained orders coordinating 24 separate lawsuits seeking more than $200 million in damages into one combined action and negotiated a comprehensive settlement (funded entirely by insurance), resulting in a dismissal with prejudice of all civil claims against the client*
• Defended eBay in a $10 million slander of title suit arising out of eBay’s efforts to develop a new pedestrian campus in San Jose; following successful anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) motions and a motion for summary judgment, obtained dismissal of the case and an award of attorneys’ fees for the client*
• Defended Wikimedia Foundation (operator of Wikipedia) in an internet defamation and unfair competition suit by the owner of a for-profit website; ultimately leveraged a settlement in which the plaintiff dismissed all claims in return for no monetary compensation*
• Defended the directors and officers of Yapstone, a venture-backed electronic payments company, in a shareholder derivative action brought by alleged minority shareholders/early employees seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages; after three years of hotly contested litigation, negotiated a settlement that resulted in the plaintiffs receiving consideration valued at a tiny fraction of their presuit demand*
• Defended Fairfield Residential, one of the largest owners and developers of multifamily property in the US, in a shareholder derivative action by the co-founder against officers and directors; negotiated a “walk away” settlement in which the clients paid nothing and obtained dismissal with prejudice of all claims against them*
• Defended Kai-Fu Lee and a group of China’s leading venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs in an internet defamation suit arising out of statements concerning the plaintiff’s alleged short-selling of US-listed Chinese companies; secured dismissal with prejudice of all claims with a favorable settlement agreement*
• Represented a group of EB-5 investors in a securities fraud action against a sponsor and promoter of a fraudulent real estate investment scheme, cooperating with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to install a receiver and formulating plan to recover and distribute $200 million in misappropriated funds*
• Defended a venture capital fund in a derivative suit brought by a receiver of a technology company alleging fraud, self-dealing and breaches of fiduciary duty by insiders that allegedly bankrupted a business claimed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars; obtained dismissal of the receiver’s primary claims by motion and settled the remainder at nuisance value*

*Denotes experience prior to joining Goodwin

Patrick is a member of the American Bar Association, The Bar Association of San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Patrick was a partner at Cooley LLP, and served as head of the firm’s 250-lawyer business litigation group from 2016-2021.

• Benchmark Litigation – Star
• The Daily Journal – Top 10 Defense Verdict