Steven K. Davidson

Steve Davidson regularly serves as lead counsel for top Fortune 500 corporations in complex litigation and arbitration. Steve is a recognized leader in international disputes and judgment enforcement. Clients such as ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Google, Motorola, Nokia Solutions and Networks, American Airlines, and US Airways, call on Steve to litigate complicated issues through trial, master difficult facts, and pursue all available avenues to obtain a recovery, often involving sensitive contractual and business issues.

These disputes typically encompass multiple fora and several potential parties and claims, presenting potentially complex enforcement questions. Steve is the co-leader of the Commercial Litigation and International Arbitration practice groups.

Steve’s success in worldwide enforcement of court judgments and arbitral awards, including provisional and pre-judgment remedies, has been heralded in several prestigious publications. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll described Steve in his New York Times bestselling book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power as “one of the world’s leading specialists in the art of seizing and liquidating assets on behalf of large, aggrieved companies.”

In connection with his work on behalf of ExxonMobil against Venezuela, Mr. Coll wrote: “For the Steptoe attorneys the late-December Friday afternoon seizure of $300 million belonging to Hugo Chavez’s government was like hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth before a full house at Yankee Stadium.”

Additionally, Steve successfully led a Steptoe team that represented Motorola in its claims against the Uzan family, which formerly owned the Turkish telecom company Telsim, concerning fraudulent conduct in connection with a $2 billion loan.

The team obtained a worldwide freezing order in the London commercial courts, which was affirmed by the English Court of Appeals; froze and liquidated assets worldwide; and obtained a fully contested fraud judgment for $2.13 billion in compensatory damages and a punitive damages judgment for $1 billion in federal court in New York City, and obtained an arbitration award for $2 billion from the Zurich Chamber of Commerce (ZCC).

These judgments were affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Steptoe successfully enforced the judgment and arbitral award in various countries throughout the world, including the United States, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Bermuda, and Guernsey.

For more than 20 years, Steve has represented national law firms in defense of legal malpractice and professional negligence issues. Steve has also served as an expert witness in a wide range of attorneys’ fees disputes.