Anderson Kill announced today that David Graff has joined the firm’s Corporate and Commercial Litigation Group as a shareholder. At age 31, he is Anderson Kill’s youngest shareholder.
An aggressive and creative litigator, Mr. Graff counsels his clients across the full spectrum of their business needs, including commercial litigation and arbitration, corporate and transactional work, and estate and succession planning. Mr. Graff’s clients are in industries including alcoholic beverage, securities, general financial services, construction, special servicers of myriad type debt, and real estate developers.
Joining Mr. Graff in the move to Anderson Kill are associates Shveta Kakar and Rachael Kierych. The trio come to Anderson Kill from Windels Marx Lane and Mittendorf LLP.
Mr. Graff prosecutes and defends all aspects of commercial disputes, litigating breach of contract, fraud, fraudulent conveyances, fiduciary duty, and business tort matters as well as securities litigations, litigations in the bankruptcy court, and employment litigations. He also acts as national counsel to a special servicer of student loan debt with over $1 billion under management.
In his litigation work, Mr. Graff has employed novel strategies and won first-of-a-kind results. Recently, in a case reported extensively in the media, he obtained the unusual remedy of a ‘put’ option for his client’s shares as part of a contempt order against a Chinese company’s failure to produce books and records, resulting in a $32 million dollar judgment for his client, plus attorneys’ fees and costs. The Delaware Chancery also appointed a Receiver in the case, and since then, working with the Receiver, Mr. Graff has spearheaded a multi-jurisdictional effort to enforce the judgment, taking control of the company’s two subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands as well as the subsidiary in Hong Kong. The Judgment was also domesticated in the Southern District of New York and through ex parte seizure raids against the company’s CFO, investor liaison firm and auditors, a wealth of information has been uncovered and the Receiver is in the process of seizing and locating assets all over the world. The New York Post has recently noted Mr. Graff’s “dogged determination” to ensure than Chinese companies like ZST Digital Networks Inc., which raise money on the U.S. capital market and then delist and ‘go dark,’ are held accountable to their U.S. shareholders. The Wall Street Journal has also covered the unusual case.
Mr. Graff’s other current engagements include a highly complex, approximately $100 million matter pending before FINRA, as well protection of his client’s interest as one of the largest shareholders in a $675 million international bankruptcy proceeding in the Cayman Islands.
Mr. Graff also serves as outside General Counsel to a variety of privately held enterprises, providing counsel on a wide range of agreements, transactions and governance issues. He also provides estate planning and related tax work, estate and trust administration, and tax and succession planning for a variety of high-net worth individuals, often owning and operating closely held business that require special planning expertise.
Mr. Graff holds a J.D. magna cum laude from Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, and a B.A. from Union College.
Also joining Anderson Kill is Shveta Kakar, a litigator with over a decade of experience, who works closely with Mr. Graff. A graduate of Harvard Law School with ‘Big Firm’ experience, Ms. Kakar has represented clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to high-ranking public officials and arts organizations in matters involving complex commercial litigation and appeals before U.S. courts. She has also obtained political asylum for various individuals, including a well known Constitutional Law Professor and Chinese dissident.
In 2010, Ms. Kakar was a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School and taught a course at on U.S.-India Comparative Constitutional Law with Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University.
Ms. Kakar holds an L.L. M. from Harvard Law School, an L.L.B. from London School of Economics and a B.A. from St. Stephens College, Delhi University.
Rachael Kierych, a 2012 graduate of Fordham Law School, also joins Anderson Kill’s litigation team. Working closely with Mr. Graff and Ms. Kakar, Ms. Kierych has played an integral role in case development, research, and drafting of key documents in cases involving breach of contract, fraud, fraudulent conveyances, shareholder rights in public securities, bankruptcy and business tort.
“David, Shveta and Rachael have proved themselves to be an exceptional litigation team, always ready to think outside the box and act swiftly to secure their clients’ interests,” said Larry Kill, chair of Anderson Kill’s Corporate and Commercial Litigation Group. “They have also counseled their clients in a wide range of business matters, and we at Anderson Kill are looking forward to providing further support to them in that regard.” “Anderson Kill provides its clients with the diversity and experience of a large firm together with the personal attention of a small firm, and that is exactly what we want for our clients,” Mr. Graff commented. “We are extremely excited about working with Anderson Kill’s closely collaborative practice groups and look forward to helping the firm meet its strategic growth plans for its New York office and nationally.”
