Attorneys

r. Middleton litigates corporate governance actions, including merger and derivative suits, on behalf of some of the nation's leading public pension funds and institutional investors, from the firm's California office.  In that capacity, he has helped obtain precedent-setting corporate governance reforms on behalf of institutional investors.

Most recently, Mr. Middleton prosecuted the NYSE Euronext Shareholder Litigation, which challenged Deutsche Börse AG's proposed $10 billion acquisition of NYSE Euronext.  Following the completion of expedited discovery and the filing of a preliminary injunction motion, the defendants agreed to settle the action and pay shareholders roughly $900 million in dividends, after the planned merger is completed.

Previously, Mr. Middleton represented public pension systems seeking to vindicate shareholder voting rights allegedly infringed by Yahoo!, Inc.'s employee severance plan, by a unique merger agreement and "Naked No-Vote" provisions used in the acquisition of Arena Resources, Inc., by the combination of a "NOL Rights Agreement" and by-law amendment adopted by the board of directors of Tenet Healthcare Corporation to ward off a hostile acquisition attempt by an industry rival, and by the Emulex board's allegedly bad faith rejection of a premium takeover offer by Broadcom Corporation and adoption of a "Poison Pill" and by-law amendment.

While at BLB&G, Mr. Middleton has also helped obtain for shareholders higher prices and meaningful corporate governance improvements and disclosures in suits arising from, among other things, the takeover battles over Caremark Rx, Inc., Longs Drug Stores, Corp., Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc., iPCS, Inc., and Alberto-Culver, Co.

In addition, Mr. Middleton has assisted in successfully prosecuting and settling important shareholder derivative cases for corporate waste such as the Apollo Group, Inc. and the Activision, Inc. stock option backdating cases.  Recently, Mr. Middleton helped prosecute the Ryland Group, Inc. Derivative Litigation, which resulted in monetary reimbursement and significant mortgage lending compliance oversight reforms to remedy alleged reckless lending practices at the national home builder's home lending subsidiary.

Mr. Middleton also has significant experience prosecuting securities fraud class actions, including trial experience.  Specifically, he worked on the trial team responsible for successfully prosecuting Clarent Corp. Securities Litigation, which resulted in an extremely rare jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs and against the former CEO of Clarent Corp.  He also was a member of the team that prosecuted the Williams Securities Litigation, which resulted in a $311 million cash settlement, which was the largest known settlement at the time without a company restating its financial statements.  Other notable cases he helped prosecute include Accredo Health, Inc. Securities Litigation ($33 million settlement); Atlas v. Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. ($22 million settlement) and Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Securities Litigation ($12 million settlement).

Mr. Middleton is an active member of the San Diego County legal community. He is a member of the Federal Bar Association and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers of San Diego.  Mr. Middleton joined BLB&G in 2004 after working as a business and intellectual property litigation associate at the San Diego office of Gordon & Rees LLP.  He is a 1993 graduate of UCLA and he received his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1998.