The reversal of a 9-figure damages award in Credit Suisse AG v. Claymore Holdings LLC focused, in part, on the specific issue submitted to the jury: “There is no question that ‘the value of what Plaintiff received in the 2007 Lake Las Vegas Financing’ is the key question in this case for purposes of calculating contract damages. Claymore argued it was also the key question for purposes of calculating fraud damages in this case. And it does not challenge the jury’s damages finding. When the question of an asset’s past value has already been proven to a jury under a damages model neither party challenges, any suggestion that it was really never possible to calculate that value faces a strong headwind.” No. 18-0403 (April 24, 2020).

The headline-grabbing aspect of Credit Suisse AG v. Claymore Holdings LLC is its reversal of a large award of rescission damages, but that holding should not obscure its affirmance of a fraudulent-inducement verdict and judgment: “The fact that certain irregularities might have been gleaned from a close examination of the 200-page Appraisal and its supporting documentation does not eviscerate the jury’s finding that Credit Suisse had superior knowledge of the material facts. The central failure of the Appraisal was that it did not provide an independent, objective, as-is fair market value as required by FIRREA. The falsity of Credit Suisse’s misrepresentation to the contrary was not apparent from the document itself. The intentional misstatement of compliance with FIRREA and the attendant overstatement of the fair market value of the collateral was not discoverable to Claymore ‘by the exercise of ordinary intelligence.’ In sum, given the jury finding of its superior knowledge, Credit Suisse cannot rely on the contractual disclaimers to defeat liability for fraudulent inducement.“ No. 18-0403 (April 24, 2020) (citation omitted).