| Biography | Jay N. Varon is a litigation partner in the firm's Washington D.C. office. Mr. Varon has litigated a broad cross-section of commercial cases around the country, including antitrust and unfair competition, consumer finance and deceptive trade practice involving matters relating to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 ("RESPA"), the Fair Credit Reporting Act, ("FCRA"), Truth In Lending Act ("TILA"), "fair lending" and related federal and state unfair trade practice and consumer protection laws, as well as cases dealing with trade secrets, employment, environmental, business tort, securities fraud, product liability, and breach of contract issues. Many of the cases that Mr. Varon handles involve the defense of class actions or other complex cases. He is a former chair of Foley's Antitrust Practice and of its Washington D.C. Litigation Department. A niche area of Mr. Varon's practice involves the counseling of real estate clients (i.e., real estate brokers, MLS's, mortgage brokers and lenders, mortgage and hazard insurers, home warranty companies and title agents and title insurers), and representing them before HUD and/or state agencies with respect to various RESPA, fair lending, antitrust, consumer protection, and related state law issues, including those involving the establishment of affiliated business arrangements and joint ventures. Mr. Varon has been antitrust and RESPA counsel to the Real Estate Services Providers Council, Inc. ("RESPRO") since its inception and has litigated for RESPRO and many of its members, as well as non-members for many years. One of Mr. Varon's successes involved having RESPRO intervene in, and then successfully defend, a case that the Mortgage Bankers Association and another trade association had brought challenging the 1992 RESPA regulation which was pro-affiliated business. Since that time he has defended numerous clients in class action cases in this area, including those reflected in the following reported decisions: (1) Chenault v. Mississippi Valley Title ("MVT") 2003 WL 21221735 (5 th Cir. June 11, 2003) in which Mr. Varon successfully defended MVT against a RESPA class action challenge to volume and differentiated commission structures with its agents before the District Court and on appeal before the Fifth Circuit ; (2) Robinson v. Fountainhead Title Insurance Group, Corp. 447 F. Supp 2d 478 (D. Md. 2006), RESPA claims were dismissed against his real estate broker clients in an action that had been brought as both a plaintiffs and a defendants class action; and (3) McCullough v. Howard Hanna Company, 2010 WL 1258112 (N.D. Ohio, Mar. 26, 2010), as well as in a variety of other unreported cases resulting in favorable rulings or class settlements. For example, Mr. Varon also has represented a major mortgage insurer in a nationwide RESPA class action and has represented various national real estate brokerage companies and various title agents in several different RESPA and unfair trade practice class actions involving markups, pricing issues regarding closing and title insurance fees, and home warranties and marketing agreements. Mr. Varon authored on industry amicus brief in the landmark case Haug v. Bank of America, 317 F.3d 832 (8 th Cir. 2003), which refused to follow HUD's Statement of Policy on unearned fees that RESPRO and other groups had vocally criticized. He has also authored industry amicus briefs in Carter v. Wells Bowen Realty-a Sixth Circuit case construing HUD's so-called Sham Joint Venture Guidelines and Edwards v. First American Title Ins. Company-a case pending before the United States Supreme Court concerning the standing of consumers to raise claims in cases where they claim to be overcharged or to have received poor service. Mr. Varon has also been involved in successfully defending various class actions under TILA and FCRA. The FCRA case raised questions of first impression regarding FCRA's application to mortgage insurance which is issued to lenders, not consumers. He is currently involved in defending real estate clients in several other class actions pending in Alabama, California, , Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Mr. Varon also continues to litigate complex cases in a variety of other areas. For example, Mr. Varon just completed serving as lead counsel for an energy client in sixteen different consumer fraud and deceptive practices class actions filed around the country that were consolidated for pretrial proceedings and discovery by the Multidistrict Panel on Litigation and recently resolved via settlement. Likewise, Mr. Varon recently completed two CERCLA trials-one in Connecticut and one in South Carolina. The Connecticut trial, Yankee Gas v. UGI Utilities, 616 F. Supp 2d 228 (D. Conn 2009)-a decision affirmed by the Second Circuit in Yankee Gas Services Co. v. UGI Utilities, Inc., No. 10-1570-cv, 2011 WL 1395260, (2nd Cir. Apr. 13, 2011)-resulted in a resounding victory for Mr. Varon's client who was exonerated from liability at 12 different Manufactured Gas Plant ("MGP") sites. The other trial, a two week trial in March, 2009, in South Carolina, is yet to be decided. Mr. Varon has also been successful in obtaining summary judgment awards in CERCLA cases. See e.g., Consolidated Edison Company of New York v. UGI Utilities, Inc., 2004 WL 627090 (S.D.N.Y.) aff'd 153 F. App'x 749 (2d Cir.2005); Atlanta Gas Light Company v. UGI Utilities, Inc., 2006 WL 2547076 (11 th Cir. 2006)(affirming district court grant of summary judgment to UGI.) Mr. Varon is a 1972 magna cum laude graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. He attended Stanford Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Stanford Law Review. Mr. Varon graduated from Stanford in 1975, Order of the Coif. Following law school, he was a law clerk to the Honorable Robert F. Peckham, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, and joined Foley in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Mr. Varon is the author of various RESPA publications for RESPRO, including "RESPA Primer On Joint Ventures And Affiliated Business Arrangements," "RESPA Guide To Affiliated Business Disclosures," "Survey of State Laws Affecting Affiliated Settlement Service Providers," and "Guide To Section 8 Of RESPA For Settlement Service Salespersons," and various other articles on antitrust and RESPA topics. He is also the author of "Promoting Settlements and Limiting Litigation Costs By Means of the Offer of Judgment; Some Suggestions for Using and Revising Rule 68," 33 Am. U. L. Rev. 813 (1984). In recognition of his experience, Mr. Varon has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system. Mr. Varon was also named to BTI Consulting Group's coveted Client Services All Star Team for 2009. This honor is bestowed upon individual attorneys who deliver outstanding client service according to corporate counsel interviewed at Fortune 1000 companies. He also was selected for inclusion in the 2007 Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers® list. |