Galia Messika

Galia Messika serves as the firm’s General Counsel. In that role she is responsible for, among other things, professional responsibility, ethics, and overall risk mitigation.  She is also a partner in the firm’s litigation department.

Ms. Messika has extensive and broad experience counseling companies’ senior management and boards of directors on resolving actual and potential disputes, litigating complex commercial cases, and responding to cybersecurity incidents.  She has handled a wide variety of matters including litigation over corporate control, securities, fraud and class action litigation, breach of contract cases, employment disputes, contested restructuring matters and trade secret and intellectual property actions, both at the trial level courts and on appeal.  Ms. Messika is intimately familiar with all phases of litigation, including appeals through her clerkship on the Israeli Supreme Court for the then-presiding Chief Justice Aharon Barak.  She has also represented and successfully defended senior executives and directors in SEC investigations, and has conducted internal investigations relating to allegations of discrimination for some of her clients. In addition, Ms. Messika helps companies respond to cybersecurity incidents, such as data breaches, and counsels clients on emerging cybersecurity legal issues.  Ms. Messika has consistently obtained very favorable results for her clients.

Representative Experience

• Successfully represented client on appeal and opposed a petition for writ of certiorari in a matter asserting involuntary servitude and illegal trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
• Obtained a favorable settlement in a shareholder litigation action challenging the acquisition of a target gold corporation in the Delaware Court of Chancery, as well as a stay of the actions in New York.
• Obtained a favorable settlement in a shareholder litigation action filed in New York challenging the taking private of a public corporation, as well as a stay of the actions in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
• Obtained dismissal of a class action securities matter alleging violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act, including on appeal before the Third Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s judgment.
• Obtained a decision in an adversary proceeding in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, granting the client’s motion to approve a multi-million dollar pensions settlement with one of its major creditors.
• Obtained an award finding for the client on all grounds and awarding it attorneys’ fees in an arbitration proceeding against a Fortune 500 company alleging that a change of control event occurred.
• Obtained dismissal of all counts in a derivative suit alleging securities violations, including on appeal before the Third Circuit.
• Represented a formerly publicly traded company and its interim management in a formal SEC investigation concerning violations of Sections 10(b), 13 and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act.  Conducted a factual investigation and represented individuals and later the interim management in depositions taken by the SEC staff.