Douglas W. Henkin

Douglas W. Henkin is a Partner and a member of Dentons' Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice, and co-US lead of the global Financial Institutions sector. His primary practice area is Commercial Litigation.

His practice includes national trials and appeals, arbitrations and regulatory proceedings, with a concentration in securities and complex commercial matters (including class and representative litigation in both federal and state courts and before executive agencies); complex cross-border litigation, including securities and mass tort cases involving contemporaneous adjudications in the US, Canada and the UK; and disputes involving technology and complex financial instruments. Because of his special expertise relating to encryption and security issues, he also works on data protection and other cybersecurity and privacy issues in both counselling and dispute resolution contexts.

His representative experience includes representing three NYSE exchanges in a Section 10(b) class action alleging that all transactions on the major US equities exchanges were manipulated by high frequency trading firms, achieving dismissal of the entire case for lack of Article III standing along with disqualification of plaintiffs' lead expert; achieving dismissal of claims by market makers that they were improperly charged payment for order flow fees; and successfully defending all NYSE equity and options exchanges and the Consolidated Tape Association against hundreds of challenges to the pricing of market data and co-location fees, litigation that involved three DC Circuit appeals and a trial before an SEC ALJ.

He represented clients in trial and appellate proceedings in a putative class action challenging the creation of FINRA, where the courts held the client was immune from claims, including proxy fraud claims (Standard Investment Chartered, Inc. v. Nat'l Ass'n of Secs. Dealers, Inc., 637 F.3d 112 (2d Cir. 2011)). He also represents significant entities and individuals in US and cross-border matters relating to cryptocurrency trading and infrastructure, including civil litigations and regulatory investigations.

Other matters include representing the former CEO of a Canadian oil company in connection with multiple class actions and regulatory proceedings in the US and Canada; defending a mortgage originator and RMBS issuer in litigation demanding that it repurchase substantially all loans that formed the basis for certain residential mortgage-backed securities, with summary judgment granted dismissing claims against the client; advising on cybersecurity issues, including system breaches and data exfiltration, ransomware, encryption, and security review and enhancement, and representing a client in litigation regarding unauthorised data exfiltration; and representing three top global reinsurers in UK and US litigation relating to a large reinsurance policy in connection with an asbestos bankruptcy restructuring.

He is currently representing a global food company in an M&A dispute with the seller relating to hundreds of millions of dollars of purchase price adjustments, contract breaches and torts committed by the seller. He successfully represented the former CEO of a solar energy company in achieving dismissal of securities litigation relating to the company's IPO and post-IPO statements, and represented mutual fund management companies and their officers and directors in litigation in New York and Delaware alleging RICO and other claims, achieving the first dismissal with prejudice in this type of case.

His underwriter representations include Fait v. Regions Financial Corporation, establishing that a plaintiff seeking to bring claims under the Securities Act of 1933 that statements of opinion were false must plead that a defendant did not in fact believe those statements when they were made; US state and federal and Canadian class actions relating to the IPO of Smart Technologies Inc., where all US claims against the underwriters were dismissed; and In Re Flag Telecom Holdings, Ltd. Securities Litigation, in which the Second Circuit dismissed the vast majority of potential claims against the underwriters by requiring the exclusion of "in-and-out" traders from the class.

His recognition includes being listed as a Recognized Lawyer by The Legal 500 (2022–2023). He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the Capital Markets Litigation Advisory Committee of the US Chamber Litigation Center.

He holds a JD, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1992), where he was Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and an SB in Theoretical Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988).