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On December 23, 2008, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court reversed the trial court and granted JPMorgan Chase Bank's Motion to Dismiss the Complaint filed by Plaintiffs Racepoint Partners, LLC and Willow Capital-II, L.L.C. in 2006. Plaintiffs alleged claims for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty based on JPMorgan Chase's role as Indenture Trustee for a $1.9 billion issuance of Zero Coupon Notes by Enron in February 2001. Plaintiffs, distressed debt traders who purchased approximately $1.25 billion worth of the Notes after Enron's bankruptcy, claimed that Enron defaulted under the Indenture Agreement by providing materially false and misleading SEC filings to JPMorgan Chase as Indenture Trustee. Simpson Thacher moved to dismiss the Complaint on multiple grounds, including failure to state a claim, preemption of the applicable New York assignment statute by federal securities laws, and preclusion by JPMorgan Chase's settlement of Newby (the consolidated MDL shareholder class action proceeding) which released Plaintiffs' claims. The Appellate Division found that Plaintiffs failed to plead a default under the express terms of the Indenture Agreement which required Enron to provide the Indenture Trustee with its SEC filings, but did not require that these filings comply with federal securities law.

The team representing JPMorgan Chase includes Tom Rice, David Woll, Alan Turner, Janet Gochman, Chris Kelly, Amanda Hector, Devin Ryan and Brittania Stewart.