Winn Allen is a litigation partner in Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s Washington, D.C., office. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and class-action defense. Winn has handled cases on a broad array of subject matters, including antitrust, contracts, class actions, fraud, labor and employment, mass torts, mergers and acquisitions, products liability, securities, and unfair trade practices. Representative clients include Bain Capital, BASF, Caterpillar, Facebook, Honeywell, the State of Georgia, United Technologies Corporation, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. He has resolved cases with motions practice, represented clients at numerous trials and preliminary injunction hearings, and argued multiple cases before the federal courts of appeals.

Complex Litigation

• INEOS v. BASF — Defeated preliminary injunction and won voluntary dismissal of lawsuit brought by INEOS seeking to enjoin the sale of BASF’s polyolefin catalysts business to W.R. Grace.

• Windy City Investments v. TIAA — Counsel for a Madison Dearborn Partners’ portfolio company in litigation against TIAA stemming from the 2014 sale of Nuveen Investments, Inc.

• Florida v. Georgia — Counsel for the State of Georgia in a rare “original jurisdiction” dispute with Florida pending in the Supreme Court of the United States. The case is being litigated before a Special Master appointed by the Court to conduct discovery and trial proceedings.

• LightSquared v. Deere & Company, et al. — Counsel for LightSquared in suit alleging tort and contract claims against several GPS manufacturers. including Garmin, Deere, and Trimble. The case involved allegations of wrongful conduct surrounding the development and launch of a nationwide wireless broadband network.

• Godwin v. Facebook — Counsel for Facebook in negligence action asserting failure-to-warn and wrongful-death claims.

• Force v. Facebook; Cohen v. Facebook — Won dismissal for Facebook of two related actions brought by Israeli citizens seeking damages and an injunction concerning the posting of terrorist content.

• Caterpillar Derivative Actions — Counsel for Caterpillar in multiple shareholder derivative actions filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

• China Fire Shareholder Litigation — Counsel for Bain Capital in connection with shareholder efforts to block Bain's acquisition of China Fire. Deal closed successfully and on time.