Robert J. Gilbert

Mr. Gilbert’s experience includes advising:

Business Interruption and First-Party Insurance Recovery

Since 1988, Mr. Gilbert’s first-party practice has included representation of businesses in the United States and abroad in claims arising from innumerable other casualty events, including explosions, fires, terror attacks, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, and pandemics.

Mr. Gilbert’s recent experience includes representing:

• Five major event companies in the successful recovery of event cancellation and business interruption losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic
• More than 120 US and international companies on several billion dollars in pandemic-related business interruption matters, including entities in the entertainment, sports, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, private equity, higher education, and technology industries
• A major power-generating utility in the recovery of tens of millions of dollars in repair and replacement costs for power turbines disabled by high-conductivity

Third-Party Liability Insurance Recovery

In addition to a docket of ongoing environmental, asbestos, product liability, professional liability, and intellectual property insurance matters, Mr. Gilbert’s third-party liability matters include representing:

• A major manufacturer of compact discs, phonographic records, cassette tapes, and toys in a successful litigation to obtain insurance proceeds from 22 insurers for defense costs and environmental liabilities*
• Major regional banks, for their own account and on behalf of managed trusts, in insurance coverage, lending, and other business disputes*
• A former chemical manufacturer in numerous successful lawsuits to obtain insurance coverage for defense costs, remedial costs, and damages for personal injuries, including insurance proceeds recovered for claims arising from DDT contamination in Santa Monica Bay, Henderson, Nevada, and the Stringfellow Acid Pits in California*
• Major New England, American, and international manufacturers in the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance proceeds relating to environmental, asbestos, silicosis, and other mass tort liabilities*
• A multi-national valve and flow control manufacturer to obtain environmental insurance from primary and excess insurers for up to US$20 million in cleanup costs, defense costs, attorney’s fees, and other damages arising out of two state-issued cleanup orders (successfully resolved in Superior Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts)*
• A leading uniform supply company to successfully recover nearly US$25 million in defense and cleanup cost for solvents contamination of groundwater (Massachusetts State and Federal Court)*
• A multi-national safety mask manufacturer that successfully recovered more than US$50 million in asbestos- and silica-related defense and settlement costs (United States District Court for the District of South Carolina and Queens Court, England)*
• A major Midwestern manufacturer to successfully recover defense and environmental cleanup costs arising from five sites in four states (Illinois State Court and Indiana State Court)*
• The successor to a major valve manufacturer litigation ultimately resulting in the recovery of more than US$100 million in asbestos-related defense and settlement costs (Los Angeles, California Superior Court)*
• Mutual fund and securities industry companies in obtaining directors and officers liability coverage for claims arising from securities law violations*
• A major tobacco company in a dispute over the application of a retrospective premium endorsement to long-tail environmental and product liability claims*
• A Massachusetts produce company in litigation to obtain return premiums under retrospectively-rated workers compensation policies*

Complex Contract and Commercial Litigation

• International sports bodies, American and international sports leagues, franchises in the major professional sports leagues, and some of the most recognizable American athletes in a wide spectrum of contract disputes involving media rights, collective bargaining, and other complex, high-dollar disputes
• Shareholder disputes involving publicly traded and privately held businesses
• Trade secret and misappropriation of technology disputes among commercial, manufacturing, and high-tech entities
• Renegotiation and breach disputes arising from force majeure events, including both pandemic-related non-performance as well explosions, hurricanes, fires, and other natural disasters
• Product liability disputes, such as lead representation of a major distributor of tobacco products in litigation against a US$1.2 billion products liability/Chapter 93A suit brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to recover Medicaid expenditures for smoking-related illnesses and nearly 50 personal injury suits alleging smoking-related illnesses (Superior Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts)*
• Northern New England’s largest marble and granite fabricator in numerous successful corporate, shareholder, and non-competition litigations (Superior Court for the State of New Hampshire)*
• A consortium of insurers in their successful Constitutional challenge in the California Supreme Court to portions of Proposition 103, a voter-passed initiative which would have imposed confiscatory rate-setting standards on automobile, casualty, and other insurers in California*

*Matter handled prior to joining Latham