Germain D. Labat is a Shareholder at Vedder Price and head of the Litigation group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Mr. Labat is an experienced trial lawyer who advises and represents companies and their executives in complex civil litigation in state and federal courts, as well as in arbitration and other ADR forums. His litigation practice focuses on all manner of complex business disputes, including commercial litigation, securities litigation, corporate governance and control disputes, suits involving non-compete agreements and other restrictive covenants, breach of fiduciary duties, misappropriation of trade secrets, franchise disputes and commercial real estate litigation. His wide-ranging list of clients includes both public and privately held companies across various sectors, including financial services, health care, food and beverage, commercial real estate, energy, retail and technology.

Mr. Labat is a forceful advocate in the courtroom, having tried numerous jury and bench trials of complex and lengthy matters, including one of the longest bench trials in California history that spanned nearly 300 trial days. While Mr. Labat typically serves as defense counsel, he also has experience representing plaintiffs, having successfully obtained multimillion-dollar verdicts for his clients.

Mr. Labat is also experienced in conducting internal investigations, acting as counsel to special litigation committees in response to both external and internal allegations of impropriety, and counseling clients and their boards of directors on pre-litigation strategy and planning.

Mr. Labat was recognized by the Legal 500 United States guide in 2015 in the Securities–Litigation category. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Labat was a partner with a leading international Am Law 100 firm. Before that he spent his early years of practice representing Silicon Valley start-ups and publicly traded tech companies in the Securities Litigation Group at another Am Law 100 firm.

He is fluent in Spanish.