Biography
Benjamin Chew is a Partner at Brown Rudnick LLP and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (“ACTL”), the most prestigious, invitation-only society of senior trial counsel in the United States. Ben is a multifaceted litigator, representing clients in complex commercial litigation and arbitrations in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and throughout the United States and internationally. He handles diverse commercial disputes, including corporate governance, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, intellectual property, government contracts, breach of contract, class actions, partnership disputes, derivative shareholder and other corporate governance actions, international disputes, Lanham Act, health care, energy, environmental, UCC, products liability, real estate, bankruptcy, employment (including noncompete), insurance law, white collar defense, fraud, and RICO litigation. Ben successfully prosecuted two breach of fiduciary cases for Johnny Depp in Los Angeles, and is currently representing Mr. Depp in his defamation case against Amber Heard in Virginia. He represented Cher in several cases, including two relating to the Academy Award nominated “Edith & Eddie.”
Fluent in Spanish, Ben is part of the team representing a Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico in the pending bankruptcy proceedings, and has litigated for Dominican, Ecuadorian, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Panamanian clients in the U.S. He has represented governments of Dubai (securing the dismissal of a multimillion-dollar arbitration award by Bechtel) and Honduras in U.S. litigation. In 2013, after passing the Kosovo Bar, he defended the holder of the country’s telecommunications franchise there in criminal proceedings brought by EULEX, securing his acquittal and enabling his company to keep its franchise. Before the European Court of Human Rights, Ben represented a leading Georgian political and business lender in a petition to restore his wrongfully revoked citizenship, and favorably resolved a defamation claim for the former treasury minister of the Czech Republic. Ben also prosecuted an arbitration claim against the Republic of Ghana at the I.C.C.
Ben remains committed to pro bono, successfully representing an African American honors graduate of the University of Virginia in his civil rights case against certain government officers. He served as counsel for one of the plaintiffs’ groups in the landmark Black Farmers class action litigation against the U.S. Department of Agriculture based on systemic discrimination in farm loan programs, which resulted in a $1.2 billion settlement. Ben represented a Native American plaintiffs’ group in the parallel Keepseagle class action, settled for just under $1 billion. He represented two Olympic gold medalists, Dr. Edwin Moses and Beckie Scott, in a matter involving an investigation conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency