Matthew Close is a partner in O’Melveny’s Los Angeles office and a member of the Securities Litigation and Financial Services Practices. His diverse litigation practice focuses on representing corporations, directors and officers, and financial advisors in securities class action, derivative, corporate governance, breach of duty, merger and acquisition, and asset sale litigation, as well as in government and special committee investigations. Matt also regularly litigates commercial disputes, consumer class actions, unfair competition and deceptive trade practice actions, and Attorney General proceedings nationwide that affect the financial services industry, including numerous matters involving loan servicing and mortgage-backed securities. In addition, Matt maintains an active real estate litigation practice representing owners, developers, lenders, and commercial tenants in development, financing, eminent domain, and rent-setting disputes.
During his career, Matt has handled many securities, merger, and joint venture disputes with international parties, including a decade-long, multibillion Euro dispute with claims asserted in four different states and three different countries. Matt is also a frequent commentator in the national and international press on the ways US securities laws and public company regulation impact how foreign companies raise and deploy capital. For example, Matt served as an authority on the implications of the US Supreme Court decision, Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd, and also was featured in a Finance Asia story on the growing number of securities class actions filed against Chinese companies listed in the United States. Matt’s articles have been published in Bloomberg Law Reports, the Los Angeles Daily Journal and International Financial Law Review, and he was chosen for a “2012 Distinguished Legal Writing Award” by the Burton Awards for Legal Achievement, which is run in conjunction with the Library of Congress. The group holds an annual contest to recognize the best legal writing from the nation’s top 1,000 law firms. Matt also has served as a faculty member for the Practising Law Institute’s Securities Litigation program, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Federal Bar Association in Los Angeles.
