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Cross-Disciplinary Latham Team Guiding Chess.com in High-Profile Lawsuit Surrounding Cheating Allegations
January 4, 2023
Purported defamation and antitrust claims for US$100 million stem from headline-grabbing allegations of cheating at chess.
Latham litigation and corporate lawyers are advising online platform Chess.com and related parties in a widely publicized lawsuit centered around the chess “cheating” scandal that has garnered considerable attention across the globe, and generated widespread interest both in and outside of the chess community.
Press around the world have taken notice, featuring the headline-making lawsuit in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and almost every major media outlet, both offline and online, across the globe. The suit has also been covered by most global live news outlets including ESPN.
The dispute stems from events following a high-profile September 2022 match between world chess champion Magnus Carlsen — the top-ranked player in the world — and Hans Moke Niemann.
A cross-disciplinary Latham team is defending Chess.com and one of its subsidiaries, as well as a key executive, with a litigation team led by partners Jamie Wine and Sean Berkowitz and counsel Nima Mohebbi, with associates Sarah Mitchell, Michael Hale, Blake Stafford, and Lindsey Sugimoto. The Latham team providing corporate counsel is led by partners Haim Zaltzman and Luke Bergstrom, with associates Jake Wasserman and Adele Zhang.
The matter is Niemann v. Carlsen et al., in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.