Neal Katyal, former Solicitor General under President Obama, has spent his post-public sector career defending any corporation willing to pay his exorbitant hourly rate. As an ex-Obama official, Katyal’s arguments carry particular weight and legitimacy—hence why corporations are willing to pay up. Rather than use this prestige to further the public good, Katyal has lent his credibility to corporations looking to make whatever obscene arguments allow them to get away with crimes.
The latest in his long list of lowlights is the computer chip manufacturing giant Nvidia. Katyal is defending Nvidia before the Supreme Court in the hopes of convincing the conservative majority to prevent a lawsuit alleging securities fraud from moving forward. Nvidia is accused of misrepresenting how much of their processing chip sales were reliant upon crypto miners in 2017 and 2018. As crypto prices tanked in 2018, so too did the company’s stock prices as mining slowed.
This is not the first time Katyal has tried to help corporations circumvent accountability, and it likely won’t be the last. We’ll keep this blog updated as Katyal discovers novel ways to sell his Obama-tinged CV as a shield for corporate malfeasance. For our past work on Katyal, covering his anti-union briefs, defense of Nestlé’s in a child slavery case, derision of wealth taxes, and more, see below:
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