Andrew Porter

Primary Focus & Experience

Mr. Porter represents clients in federal and state court in a variety of complex commercial litigation matters. He has significant experience representing clients in a broad range of industries including media and entertainment, insurance, and financial services.

Mr. Porter has represented Broadcast Music, Inc. in multiple rate-setting litigations and other matters. Notable litigation representations for BMI include a trial victory against the North American Live Concert Promoters Association to set the rate to be paid by Live Nation and others, which resulted in a substantial rate increase for BMI, and a trial victory against Pandora Media, Inc. in a decision that was identified by Law360 as one of the biggest copyright rulings of the year. Mr. Porter is currently representing Broadcast Music, Inc. in a rate setting case to establish licensing fees for commercial broadcast radio stations across the country, among other disputes with music users.

Mr. Porter represented subsidiaries of Universal Entertainment Corporation in a busted-deal SPAC litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery, obtaining a trial victory where the Court refused to order the subsidiaries to close a merger with their SPAC counterparty.

Mr. Porter also represents a major life insurance company in a number of litigations challenging cost of insurance adjustments. These representations include two putative nationwide class actions where Milbank obtained denials of class certification.

Other notable representations include:

• Represented Atrium Holding Company in its claim against numerous insurance carriers arising from the loss of a hotel in Sonoma County, California, due to a wildfire.
• Represented Citigroup, Inc., Citibank, N.A., and Citigroup Global Capital Markets Inc. in a putative class action filed in the Southern District of New York. Plaintiffs, holders, and beneficial owners of American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) for which Citibank, N.A. served as the depositary bank, allege that Citibank charged unreasonable and undisclosed fees when converting dividends and other payments associated with the ADRs from foreign currencies into US dollars, harming the investors. 
• Pro bono work pursuing exoneration for wrongfully convicted individuals, including as part of a team representing John Francis Wille, a Louisiana man sentenced to death in for murder in 1986, in a post-conviction proceeding to exonerate him on the basis of false confessions and numerous constitutional violations. In 2014, Milbank secured a court order vacating Mr. Wille’s death sentence; the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision in 2017. The team continues to fight to prove Mr. Wille’s innocence.