Steve Blake is a Partner in the Firm’s Litigation Practice. He has extensive experience resolving high-stakes shareholder litigation and securities regulatory matters. Steve regularly advises corporations, financial institutions, funds and their advisors in connection with mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, legal compliance and commercial disputes. He focuses on complex disputes involving corporate crises, cross-border transactions, business valuation and/or accounting matters. Steve also regularly represents entities and individuals in investigations before the SEC, stock exchanges and FINRA concerning shareholder disclosure, accounting fraud, corruption and insider trading.
Steve frequently writes and lectures on stockholder litigation issues, and is the author of the quarterly “Stock Block” column in The Recorder. Steve’s recent columns “Taking Stock of Recent ESG Regulatory and Shareholder Litigation Developments,” and “SPAC Action, Litigation and Regulatory Reaction” have been widely read.
Representative experience includes:
- The Board of Directors of PG&E Corporation in securities and derivative litigation
arising out of wildfires in Northern California;
- MultiPlan in connection with seminal Delaware Chancery litigation over its 2020
de-SPAC business combination with Churchill Capital III;
- Velocity Financial in the first dismissal of a COVID-19 pandemic-related securities
class action related to its January 2020 IPO;
- Alibaba Group in multiple securities litigations concerning its $25 billion New
York Stock Exchange 2014 initial public offering; the 2020 cancellation of Ant Group’s
announced $34 billion IPO; and a Chinese government antitrust investigation;
- Microsoft in M&A litigation concerning its 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard,
2021 acquisition of Nuance Communications and 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn; and
- Silver Lake Partners in multi-forum M&A and appraisal litigation concerning Silver
Lake’s 2013 take-private of Dell, Dell’s 2015 acquisition of EMC Corporation and
Dell’s 2018 public re-listing transaction.
Steve was recognized as a one of Bloomberg Law’s “40 Under 40” for 2022 and 2021 Law360 “Rising Star” in Securities, and was a repeat honoree on Benchmark Litigation’s “40 & Under List. He was also honored by the Daily Journal as a 2023 “Leading Commercial Litigator” and was named a 2022 “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by The Recorder. Steve is consistently recognized by The Legal 500 in both M&A Litigation and Securities Litigation, and as a “Rising Star” in Northern California securities litigation by Super Lawyers. He received his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of San Francisco in 2008.
Updated Aug 2023
