Edward K. Lenci handles complex business and commercial litigations, arbitrations and appeals. His extensive experience encompasses a variety of areas, including banking, computers, construction, employment, intellectual property, insurance, reinsurance, environmental and securities. His successes include a victory before the U.S. Supreme Court. Business Litigation, Arbitration and Appeals
Mr. Lenci is defending a Fortune 500 company, which provided business process outsourcing services to a lender, in a class action lawsuit that alleges that the client and the lender were involved in a scheme to defraud borrowers. See Fensterstock v. ACS (S.D.N.Y.). He is pursuing multimillion dollar claims under CERCLA and an indemnity agreement on behalf of a Chilean corporation and its U.S. subsidiary because five industrial sites they acquired from a U.S. company in 1990s have become the subject of environmental actions and investigations by federal and state authorities. See Ceramicas Industriales S.A., and Briggs Plumbing Products, Inc. v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (S.D.N.Y.). He represents a Los Angeles law firm in a suit brought against it by its former client, the former President and CEO of Pali Capital, over the fees incurred representing him in a shareholders’ derivative suit in New York City; he secured an order that stayed the New York proceedings in favor of arbitration before JAMS in Los Angeles. See Bradley Reifler v. Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, Howard & Shapiro LLP (S.D.N.Y. Bankr.). (His work in the area of reinsurance disputes is covered in the section following this.)

Mr. Lenci is well-known also for his appellate work, particularly that concerning the arbitration of disputes. His victories, one in the U.S. Supreme Court, include the following:

• Fensterstock v. Affiliated Computer Services, Inc., ___ U.S. ___ (S.Ct. June 2011) (persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that had held that a class arbitration waiver in a promissory note was unconscionable) (this victory was a front-page story in The New York Law Journal, June 14, 2011).
• Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, et al. v. GLOBAL Reinsurance Corporation of America, Amerisure, 927 N.E.2d 740 (Ill. App. 2010) (won the vacatur of an arbitral award on appeal, and reversal of the trial court, by proving the arbitrators exceeded their authority and committed a “gross error of law”) (this victory was the lead story in the Chicago Daily Law Journal on March 16, 2010).
• Intertec Contracting, A/S, et al. v. Turner Steiner International S.A., et al., 779 N.Y.S. 2d 14 (N.Y.App. 2004) (won reversal of the trial court’s decision that had dismissed a construction delay claim on the grounds of forum non conveniens) (this victory was the “Decision of the Day” in The New York Law Journal on March 22, 2004).
• Mutual Marine Offices, Inc., et al. v. Banco de Seguros del Estado, 344 F.3d 255 (2d Cir. 2003) (persuaded the Circuit Court of Appeals that a South American bank has waived sovereign immunity and that sovereign immunity should not apply in private commercial arbitrations anyway).
• Gerling Global Reinsurance Corporation – U.S. Branch v. ACE Property & Casualty Insurance Co., 2002 U.S. App. Lexis 15571 (2d Cir. 2002) (convinced the Circuit Court of Appeals that a reinsurer was not required to arbitrate its rescission claim because the arbitration clause of the parties’ contract did not encompass such a claim).
• Intertec Contracting, A/S, et al. v. Turner Steiner East Asia Ltd., et al., 2001 U.S. App. Lexis 4156 (2d Cir. 2001) (persuaded the Circuit Court of Appeals that an arbitration clause in a construction contract requiring arbitration in Sri Lanka was not incorporated by reference into the parties’ subcontract).
• Curiale v. AIG Multi-Line Syndicate, Inc., et al., 640 N.Y.S.2d 18 (N.Y. App. 1996) (convinced the New York State appellate court that a reinsurer was entitled to rescission of a quota share treaty).

Reinsurance Disputes
Mr. Lenci’s experience in the area of reinsurance dispute resolution is extensive and highly regarded. He has “scored a hat trick” by winning the rare remedy of rescission of a reinsurance contract on three separate occasions – once in a jury trial, once in an arbitration, and once from the bench. He has also collected millions of dollars for cedents from reinsurers located in Central and South America and Europe.

In addition to several of the appellate victories listed above, Mr. Lenci’s other representative reinsurance successes include:

• National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa v. Clearwater Insurance Company, 2007 WL 2106098, S.D.N.Y. July 21, 2007 (No. 04-CV-5032) (convinced a federal district court that the doctrine of “follow the fortunes” did not require the reinsurer to cover ECO payments the insurer made to its policyholder).
• Gerling Global Reinsurance Corporation — U.S. Branch v. ACE Property & Casualty Company (S.D.N.Y. 2003) (won the first jury verdict ever in the United States rescinding a reinsurance agreement).
• Liquidation of The Home Insurance Company (persuaded a New Hampshire tribunal that The Home was not the reinsurer of QBE, thus paving the way for collection of payment in full from QBE’s true reinsurer).
• GLOBAL Reinsurance Corporation – U.S. Branch v. Sompo Japan Insurance, Inc., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37969 (S.D.N.Y. 2005) (persuaded an arbitration panel and then a federal district court that a reinsurer must post a $7.5 million LOC in favor of its cedent based merely on the loss, reserve and IBNR figures in the latter’s annual statement).

Mr. Lenci is a co-chair of the Insurance and Reinsurance Committee of the New York State Bar Association’s International Section, was co-chair the HarrisMartin Reinsurance Summit in September 2011 in Philadelphia, and is a charter member of the editorial board of Reinsurance, a publication of HarrisMartin.

Intellectual Property and Restrictive Covenants
Mr. Lenci has litigated a variety of disputes involving intellectual property rights and restrictive covenants. His successes in this area include:

• Oona Tropeano Expressions, Inc. v. Studio Chevalier, Ltd., et al., 04 CV 8887 (S.D.N.Y. 2007). Mr. Lenci won dismissal of a copyright infringement claim that a U.S. designer brought against a Canadian custom printing company. He followed up this victory by recouping most of the attorneys’ fees his client expended in moving to dismiss.
• Dr. Ernest Rossi, et al. v. Irvington Publishers, 04 CV 7191 (S.D.N.Y.). Mr. Lenci represented Dr. Ernest Rossi, the collaborator of the late Dr. Milton H. Erickson, a pioneer in the field of medical hypnotherapy. As a result of Mr. Lenci’s efforts, Dr. Erickson’s classic works are once again available to the field.
• The Health Consultants Group v. Dailey, 2004 U.S. Dist. Lexis 23718 (S.D.N.Y. 2004). Mr. Lenci tried a case in federal court resulting in the issuance of an injunction, against a former employee of a Connecticut-based health insurance broker, enforcing the terms of a restrictive covenant. Mr. Lenci’s skillful cross-examination of the former employee resulted in the trial judge’s observations that his testimony was “contradictory,” “evasive,” and “confused, tortured and generally less than credible.”
• Successfully defended a well-known financial-services entrepreneur in a federal lawsuit brought by his former employer, a large financial institution, which sought to enjoin the use of its alleged trade secrets and intellectual property and enforce a restrictive covenant.

Construction
Among Mr. Lenci’s victories is the decision in Intertec Contracting A/S, et al. v. Turner Steiner International, S.A., et al., 774 N.Y.S.2d 14 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dept. 2004), where the appellate court held that the trial court was wrong to dismiss a European subcontractor’s claims on the grounds of forum non conveniens. After the case was remanded to the trial court, the dispute settled on terms very favorable to Mr. Lenci’s client. He also represented an Australian contractor in a dispute arising out of a project involving the removal of turbines in New Jersey. Mr. Lenci joined Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in September 2007. Previously he was a partner of Wilker & Lenci, LLP, a well-regarded New York City boutique firm. Before that, he was a partner in the New York office of a large international firm.

He began his legal career at Hamada & Matsumoto (now Mori, Hamada & Matsumoto) in Tokyo. Mr. Lenci is a charter member of the editorial board of Reinsurance, a publication of HarrisMartin. He co-chaired the HarrisMartin Reinsurance Summit in Philadelphia in September 2011. He has authored a number of articles, including:

• “Judicial Scrutiny of Arbitral Awards in the U.S.” (paper and presentation), New York State Bar Association meeting, Sydney, Australia, October 2010.
• “Lessons of the Recent Decisions Vacating Arbitral Awards,” Reinsurance, October 2010.
• “Getting Security in Arbitration, Even From a Foreign State,” The Brief (a publication of the American Bar Association), Winter 2003.
• “Take Heart: Arbitrability Has Its Limits,” Mealey’s Litigation Report: Reinsurance, October 17, 2002.
• Co-author, “For Whom Bellefonte Tolls,” Mealey’s Litigation Report: Reinsurance, May 29, 1998.
• Co-author, “Utmost Good Faith and Rescission,” Reinsurance Law & Practice, Practising Law Institute, 1997.
• Co-author, “Curiale v. AIG Multi-Line Syndicate, Inc., et al.: New York Makes Reinsurance Fraud Potentially Risk-Free,” Mealey’s Litigation Report: Reinsurance, Vol. 7, No. 17, February 1997.
• Co-author, “Arbitrating Reinsurance Disputes in the Years of the Cats,” Journal of Reinsurance, Fall 1994.

Mr. Lenci’s presentations include:

• “Judicial Scrutiny of Arbitral Awards in the U.S.” New York State Bar Association meeting, Sydney, Australia, October 2010.
• “The ‘American Rule’ at Risk: Reliastar Life Insurance Company of New York v. EMC National Life Co.,” Hinshaw’s 2009 Insurance Services Symposium, Chicago, Illinois, October 2009.

Mr. Lenci’s commitment to pro bono work dates to his days at Columbia University School of Law, when he interned at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York City. Over the years since his graduation, he has represented a number of artists and not-for-profit organizations involved in the arts. He is an advisor to the Mimes & Mummers, a Fordham University theatrical group with which he had performed in his student days. He led a highly successful campaign to raise funds to renovate the group’s historic theater.

He lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, with his wife, artist Monica Lenci. He is active in community affairs.