Peter H. Fountain

Peter H. Fountain is a partner in Quinn Emanuel's New York office, where he represents companies and individuals in high-stakes disputes, with a focus on mergers & acquisitions and financial services litigation.

Peter has been named “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer on three separate occasions.  He recently obtained a complete trial victory for Desktop Metal in an expedited broken-deal dispute, with the Delaware Court of Chancery ordering Nano Dimension to specifically perform its obligations and close its $300 million acquisition of Desktop.  Peter also secured a decisive preliminary injunction win for Ingersoll Rand following its $2.3 billion acquisition of ILC Dover.  That ruling enforced a non-compete in Colorado—a state where non-competes are presumptively void—against ILC Dover's CEO, who had sought to depart for a competitor just days after the acquisition closed.  In addition to court victories, Peter obtained an unprecedented public apology from the Internal Revenue Service for Citadel founder Ken Griffin.  That litigation arose from what was reported as "the largest known data theft in the history of the IRS" and, as part of the settlement, the IRS agreed to work with other government agencies and independent third parties to assess its systems for potential vulnerabilities.

Peter's other notable accomplishments include defeating claims that Citadel Securities conspired with Robinhood to restrict trading in GameStop and other "meme stocks" during the January 2021 short squeeze, where he prevailed at both the trial court level and on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, and obtaining a favorable settlement for Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) in a multi-billion dollar dispute with Bacardi concerning the valuation of luxury cognac D'Usse.

Prior to joining Quinn Emanuel, Peter was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and a law clerk for the Hon. Dora L. Irizarry, Chief United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York. Peter graduated from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar and finalist in the school's Harlan Fiske Stone moot court competition.