LOVELL STEWART HALEBIAN JACOBSON - Key Persons
Adam is a graduate of Yale University, cum laude, B.A. 1985, and of the University of California, Berkeley, M.A. (Asian Studies) and J.D. 1993;
Adam studied at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and was Legislative Assistant to Members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, 1993-1997; and
Adam is admitted to practice in California and New York.
Benjamin M. Jaccarino is a partner at Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson, LLP. Mr. Jaccarino is a graduate of Wheaton College, Bachelor of Arts in 2006. He graduated from Suffolk University with a J.D. in 2009. While at Suffolk, Ben received an Oral Advocate award. He was admitted to practice in the State of New York in 2010; before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in 2010; and before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2010.
Ben has been with the Firm since 2009 and primarily focuses on commodities manipulation, and antitrust class actions. Mr. Jaccarino has been involved in a number of commodity manipulation class actions and antitrust class actions that have resulted in favorable settlements for plaintiffs.
Ben has represented, as the co-lead counsel firm, businesses and consumers of freight forwarding services who were harmed by an alleged price-fixing conspiracy among numerous freight forwarders, Precision Associates, Inc. et al., v. Panalpina World Transport (Holding) LTD. et al, 08-cv-0042 (E.D.N.Y.). To date, this case has resulted in over $450 million in settlements.
Ben played an active role in representing purchasers of 10-year treasury notes in Kohen v. Pacific Investment Management, Co, LLC that resulted in a settlement of $118,750,000, which is the second-largest class action recovery in the history of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. §1 et seq. ("CEA"). Ben also successfully played an active role in representing traders of New York Mercantile Exchange ("NYMEX") natural gas futures contracts in In re Amaranth Natural Gas Commodities Litig., 07-cv-6377 (SAS) (S.D.N.Y.). This action resulted in a settlement of $77,100,000, which is the fourth-largest class action recovery in the history of the CEA.
Ben's active cases include representing clients in Sullivan v. Barclays PLC et al., No. 13-cv-2811, In re LIBOR-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation. No. 11-md-2262 (NRB) (S.D.N.Y.), and In Re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 2481.
Chris McGrath is a partner who practices out of the Firm's New York office. Mr. McGrath is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, Bachelor of Arts with honors in 2001. He graduated from the University of Missouri School of Law in 2004 where he was a member of The Journal of Dispute Resolution.
Mr. McGrath was admitted to practice in the State of New York in 2005. Mr. McGrath has been with the firm since 2005 and has litigated primarily commodity manipulation and price-fixing class actions. With Mr. Essenmacher and Mr. Lovell, he had an important role in successfully representing traders of 10-year treasury note futures contracts in Kohen v. Pac. Inv. Mgmt. Co. LLC, 05-cv-4681 (RAG) (N.D. Ill.). This action resulted in a settlement of $118,750,000, while the fully briefed motion for summary judgment was pending, which is the second largest class action recovery in the history of the Commodity Exchange Act. Mr. McGrath also was a principal attorney for the Firm in successfully representing traders of New York Mercantile Exchange ("NYMEX") natural gas futures contracts in In re Amaranth Natural Gas Commodities Litig., 07-cv-6377 (SAS) (S.D.N.Y.). This action resulted in a settlement of $77,100,000, made during merits expert discovery.
Mr. McGrath is currently a principal attorney for the Firm in representing purchasers of NYMEX platinum and palladium futures contracts in In re Platinum and Palladium Futures Litig., 10-cv-3617 (WHP) (S.D.N.Y.), where there is a proposed partial settlement of $48,400,000 with certain defendants; purchasers of Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME") Class III milk futures contracts and physical cheese and milk in In re Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. Cheese Antitrust Litig., 09 Civ. 03690, (RMD) (N.D. Ill.) where there is a proposed partial settlement of $46,000,000 with certain defendants.
Mr. McGrath's other active cases include representing commodity futures traders in In re Crude Oil Commodity Futures Litig., 11-cv-3600 (WHP) (S.D.N.Y.); In re Term Commodities Cotton Futures Litig., 12-cv-05126 (ALC) (S.D.N.Y.); and he has successfully prosecuted three intellectual property class actions in which the Firm was the primary class counsel.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Principal
- Expert
- Partner of Lovell Stewart Halebian
Craig M. Essenmacher is partner of Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson, LLP and practices out of our Michigan office. Craig focuses on antitrust, and commodities manipulation. He has been involved in the fields of complex litigation and class actions for over ten years.
Craig is a graduate of Michigan State University, Bachelor of Science in 1990. He also graduated from Michigan State University with a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry in 1995. During his graduate studies in Chemistry, Craig Essenmacher published three peer reviewed papers in respected scientific journals that include The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. and The Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Craig has been the principal attorney for the Firm in representing businesses and consumers of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) products who were harmed by an alleged price-fixing conspiracy among TFT-LCD manufacturers, In re: TFT-LCD (Flat Panel) Antitrust Litigation (cash recovery of $1.1 Billion). Craig represented, as the co-lead counsel firm, a class of indirect purchasers in a price-fixing scheme involving Potash containing products In re: Potash Antitrust Litigation, an antitrust class action that resulted in a $20-plus million dollar settlement recovery for the class. Mr. Essenmacher represented an indirect purchaser class, as the co-lead counsel firm, for auto filter price-fixing antitrust, In re: Aftermarket Filters Antitrust Litigation, resulting in a multi-million dollar settlement recovery for the class. He was involved in a settlement for indirect purchasers in a price-fixing action for surcharges charged by major airlines for cargo shipping, In Re: Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, resulting in an $80 million recovery for the class and $17,000,000 for indirect purchasers.
Craig is an expert in discovery and is involved in numerous discovery issues in pending antitrust and commodity manipulation class actions with the Firm. In addition to writing and advocacy work, Craig liases with experts and consultants in the processing, preparation and analysis of large amounts of transactional and pricing data, preparation of regression analyses, and other aspects of preparing class certification and merits expert reports.
Craig was a principal attorney for the Firm in several price-fixing and commodity manipulation class actions that have resulted in favorable settlements for plaintiffs. Mr. Essenmacher was a principal attorney for the Firm in prosecuting Kohen v. Pacific Investment Management, Co., LLC; In re Amaranth Natural Gas Commodities Litigation; In re Natural Gas Commodities Litigation.
He graduated from Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University with a J.D. with a Summa Cum Laude distinction in 1997. He was admitted to practice in the State of Michigan in November 1997; before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in February 1998; and before the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in February 1998. Mr. Essenmacher is well versed in multi-district complex litigation, with a specific knowledge of antitrust, and commodities manipulation.
Mr. Essenmacher served as a council member for Michigan State Bar Association section of Antitrust, Franchising and Trade Regulation from 2010-2012.
Gary S. Jacobson Is a 1972 graduate of Yale College (A.B. with Honors), where he served as Chairman of the Yale Record, and a 1976 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School (J.D.), where he served as a member of the board of editors of the Virginia Law Review (1974-76).
Ian T. Stoll is a partner who practices out of the Firm's New York office. Ian focuses on commodities, antitrust and securities litigation. He has been involved in the fields of complex litigation and class actions for over 18 years.
Ian has been actively involved in many of the Firm's commodities manipulation, price fixing and securities class actions:
Ian is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (A.B., 1987) and the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law (J.D., 1996), where he obtained a Certificate in the Business Law Program and was an Associate Editor, Buffalo J. Int'l Law.
James Parry ("Jason") Eyster, a partner at Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson, LLP, primarily focuses on antitrust class actions and commodities manipulation. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Eyster served as a professor at several law schools, including Wayne State University Law School, Western Michigan University Law School, and the Peking University School of Transnational Law. His scholarship, which often concerns legal persuasion, includes numerous articles in both academic and practical law journals. In addition, he served as a long-time editor of both the Journal of Asian Business and the annual Immigration and Nationality Law Handbook. Jason is a graduate of Princeton University and Fordham Law School, where he founded and was Editor-in-Chief of the Fordham International Law Journal. He is admitted to practice in the State of Michigan.
Jody is a 1976 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, B.A., summa cum laude, and a 1979 graduate of Columbia University School of Law, J.D., and has more than thirty years' experience with commercial litigation in state and federal courts.
Jody has worked on class actions in securities, commodity futures, and antitrust cases including serving as the Firm's principal attorney in In re Microsoft Litig., MDL No. 1332 (D.Md.); Leider v. Ralfe (DeBeers Diamond Jewelry Antitrust), 01 Civ. 3137 (HB) (S.D.N.Y.); Eugenia J. Fiala, et al. v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, et al., Index No. 00/601181 (N.Y.S. Sup. Ct.); In re Avista Securities Litig, 02-CV-328 (FVS).
Jody is now the Firm's principal attorney in In re LIBOR-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litig., 11-md-2262 (NRB) (S.D.N.Y.) and also is actively involving in Precision Assoc., Inc. v. Panalpina World Transport (Holding) Ltd. (Freight Forwarders Antitrust Litig.), 08 Civ. 0042 (JG)(VVP), (E.D.N.Y.) and Anwar, et al. v. Fairfield Greenwich Limited, et al., 09-cv-0118 (S.D.N.Y.).
Keith Essenmacher is partner to the Firm, and practices out of our Michigan office. Mr. Essenmacher focuses on antitrust and consumer litigation and has been involved in the fields of complex litigation and class actions for seven years. Mr. Essenmacher has prosecuted a variety of federal and state court price-fixing, monopoly and unfair business practice actions against multinational companies and Fortune 500 corporations.
Keith is a graduate of Michigan State University, 1996; a graduate of Michigan State University Law, J.D. 2000; admitted to practice in the State of Michigan in 2000, and before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in February 2001.
Keith served as a council member for Michigan State Bar Association Antitrust, Franchising and Trademark division from 2010-2012.
Keith was a principal attorney for the Firm in In re: Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Antitrust Litigation, 07-cv-5944 and In re: Processed Egg Products Antitrust Litigation, 08-md-02002. Keith has represented businesses and consumers of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) products who were harmed by an alleged price-fixing conspiracy among TFT-LCD manufacturers. This action has been settled for $1.1 Billion. Keith represented a class of purchasers in a price fixing scheme involving Potash containing products Gillespie v. Agrium Inc. This antitrust class action resulted in a $20 million dollar settlement recovery for the class.
Matthew is a graduate of Calvin University, B.S. 2004; a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law, J.D. 2007; admitted to practice in the State of Michigan and the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in November of 2007; and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Tribal Court in 2016.
Mr. Kuipers has been actively involved in over 20 different commodities manipulation and antitrust class action cases with the Firm since 2010. Matthew is well versed in discovery and involved in numerous discovery related issues with the Firm. In addition to document review, Matthew also assists the firm in processing and preparing large amounts of transactional data for expert review along with preparing for class certification, depositions and expert reports.
Merrick Scott Rayle is Of Counsel to Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson and has been affiliated with the Firm since July 2001. He has an "AV" rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
Mr. Rayle's practice with the Firm is concentrated on the prosecution of commodity futures, antitrust, and securities manipulation Class Actions. His experience with the Firm includes cases prosecuting energy company defendants for manipulating the price of natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange; prosecuting defendants for manipulating the price of the June 2005 ten-year Treasury note futures contract; prosecuting a complex, multinational conspiracy among the leading electronics manufacturers to fix the prices for LCD panels in the United States; prosecuting multiple real estate brokerage firms for refusing to compete on the basis of price of residential real estate commission rates in the Commonwealth of Kentucky; prosecuting potash suppliers in Canada, the United States, Russia, and Belarus for a conspiracy to restrict the supply and raising or fixing the prices for potash sold in the United States; prosecuting major record labels for conspiring to fix the prices and terms under which their music would be sold over the Internet; prosecution of a nationwide conspiracy against the producers of domestic shell eggs and egg products and their trade associations for conspiring to manipulate the supply of, and thereby fix the prices for, domestically-sold shell eggs and egg products; prosecuting the theft of intellectual property and proprietary information and violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 against the controlling shareholders of the first company to provide high-speed Internet access via cable modem; and prosecuting a conspiracy to fix prices for Cathode Ray Tubes and to allocate markets and customers for the sales of Cathode Ray Tubes in the United States.
From 1978-1987, Mr. Rayle was a Partner in the Chicago Office of Sonnenschein Carlin Nath & Rosenthal, since combined with Dentons. He has over thirty-five years' experience in complex litigation, trials, and appeals, trying over 25 cases in the state and federal court system. He has handled Class Action cases in the federal court system in California, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Rayle's experience included advising clients in a broad range of substantive matters, including antitrust, corporate governance and shareholder disputes, state and federal appellate advocacy, constitutional law (individual rights and freedoms and First Amendment issues), the Americans with Disabilities Act, common law and business torts, breach of contract, grand jury investigations, municipal corporations, defamation, election disputes, internal corporate investigations, representation of entertainers and authors, corporate tax litigation, and pre-dispute arbitration. Mr. Rayle also successfully tried a case in the United States Tax Court in which the Tax Court ruled that a corporate taxpayer was entitled to claim substantial net operating loss carryovers from an acquired corporation, despite the Government's claim that the principal purpose of the acquisition was the avoidance of tax.
Mr. Rayle served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Roy L. Stephenson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for two years. Mr. Rayle received his law degree from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law where he was a member of Indiana Law Review. He received his Bachelor of Art's degree from Butler University, and graduated from Culver Military Academy.
Mr. Rayle is admitted to practice law in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa (Inactive in Good Standing), Northern District of Illinois General and Trial Bars, United States Tax Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, and in various United States District Courts.
Rikiya is a graduate of Tulane University Law School;
Rikiya was admitted to the bar of New York in 1998;
Rikiya has repeatedly worked on antitrust and commodity futures manipulation cases with the Firm since 1997, including In re Sumitomo Copper Litigation, 96 Civ. 4584 (MP); In re TFT-LCD (Flat Panel) Antitrust Litig., 07 cv 1827-SI (N.D.Cal.); Precision Associates, Inc. et al., v. Panalpina World Transport (Holding) LTD. et al, 08-cv-0042 (E.D.N.Y.), and other cases involving documents in Japanese.
Robert is a graduate of Fordham University, holds an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a JD from Columbia University Law School, where he was an editor of the Columbia Business Law Review.
Robert was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the United States Army (Manpower & Reserve Affairs) from 2007-2009, implementing administrative law and regulatory policies relating to integration of the reserve component, troop mobilization, medical care, civilian and military personnel recruiting, promotions, training, force structure and manpower management.
Robert has been a practicing attorney for over 25 years, specializing in antitrust, securities law, litigation and other federal law claims.
Robert was the Firm's principal attorney in In re Warnaco, 01-CIV-3346; In re Rediff, 01-cv-3020, and is now a principal attorney in Anwar, et al. v. Fairfield Greenwich Limited, et al., 09-cv-0118 (S.D.N.Y.).
Travis H. Carter is an associate at Lovell Stewart Halebian Jacobson, LLP.
Prior to rejoining the firm in 2017, he was an assistant prosecutor in New Jersey for over five years. In that capacity, he represented the state in every phase of litigation in the prosecution of felony crimes in superior court. This included being lead counsel or co-counsel on over a dozen jury trials charging serious crimes, including homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, illegal use of firearms, narcotics distribution, and resisting arrest. Juries returned guilty verdicts in a number of these cases and the successful outcomes appeared in multiple news outlets, including the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Mr. Carter also engaged in extensive written and oral motion practice and managed all facets of cases, including grand jury presentations, indictments, plea negotiations, discovery, arraignments, status conferences, bail hearings, pretrial conferences, sentencing, appeals and post-conviction matters.
Mr. Carter previously worked at the Firm as a law clerk, paralegal and a legal assistant.
Mr. Carter graduated with a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2011, where he won the National Immigration Law Moot Court Competition.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the New York University College of Arts and Science in 2006, where he had his writing published in outlets across the country.
Mr. Carter is admitted to practice law in the states of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and in the Southern District of New York. He focuses on antitrust class action cases.
Victor is Chairman of Lovell Stewart Halebian & Jacobson LLP's securities law department.
Victor was named Valedictorian of St. Marks School Class of 1968, is a 1972 graduate of Yale College (B.A. English), a 1975 graduate of Harvard Business School (M.B.A.) with a concentration in finance and commodity business, a 1979 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School (J.D.), and served on The Virginia Journal of International Law (1977-1979), Articles Editor (1978-1979). Victor has more than twenty-five years´ experience in the securities field, including securities litigation, public and private securities offerings both as issuer's and underwriter's counsel, arbitrage, mortgage securitization and financial markets analysis.
Victor second-chaired the successful trial of antitrust and Commodity Exchange Act manipulation claims in Strobl v. New York Mercantile Exchange, 582 F. Supp. 770 (S.D.N.Y. 1984), aff´d, 768 F.2d 22 (2d Cir. 1985), cert. denied, Simplot v. Strobl, 474 U.S. 1006, 106 S.Ct. 527 (1985); has subsequently litigated complex class actions, including acting as the Firm's principal attorney in Initial Public Offering Antitrust Litigation and In re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation, 2009 WL 3397238 (S.D.N.Y. October 5, 2009); Anwar, et al. v. Fairfield Greenwich Limited, et al., 09-cv-0118 (S.D.N.Y.); In re Facebook, Inc., IPO Securities and Derivative Litig., MDL 12-2389 (S.D.N.Y); and performed substantial work on In re Sumitomo Copper Litigation, 96 Civ. 4584 (MP) (S.D.N.Y.); In re NASDAQ Market-Makers Antitrust Litigation, M.D.L. No. 123 (S.D.N.Y.); and Eugenia J. Fiala, et al. v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, et al., Index No. 00/601181 (N.Y.S. Sup. Ct.).