In a near-empty courthouse on a Friday night, five Reese Marketos lawyers were the first in the legal profession to win a jury verdict in the First Division of the new Texas Business Courts.
On Aug. 21, 2026, at 9:30 p.m., a 12-person jury in Dallas County ruled that Reese Marketos client AT&T did not breach an agreement with service provider FiberWave and its subcontractor, Spearhead Networks, when AT&T rejected their demand for $50 million in commissions and terminated their contract after learning Spearhead’s principal had paid bribes and kickbacks for years to earn business.
The jury verdict also found FiberWave and Spearhead breached their contractual duty to indemnify AT&T for legal fees arising from a Department of Justice investigation into the kickback payments. After receiving a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California in October 2022, AT&T paid an outside law firm more than $8.4 million in legal fees to respond to the subpoena and conduct an internal investigation. The jury awarded AT&T a total of $8 million, assigning $4 million in liability each to Spearhead and FiberWave.
The jury rejected all of the plaintiffs’ claims against AT&T, including $50 million in requested damages arising from alleged unpaid commissions.
“The evidence showed that the service provider was paying kickbacks to AT&T employees, and when AT&T found out, it did the right thing and cut ties,” said lead AT&T lawyer Tyler Bexley. “We’re grateful the jury stayed late on a Friday to deliver a clear verdict, and I’m incredibly proud of the team that put this case together to obtain the first jury verdict ever in the Dallas Division of the Texas Business Court.”
Judge Andrea Bouressa presided over the trial, which took place in a borrowed courtroom: Dallas County’s 14th District Court. While the First Division had previously held a jury trial, that case was resolved on a directed verdict before deliberations. AT&T’s trial marks the first time a jury has returned a verdict in the division.
This is not the first time for Reese Marketos to set precedent in the Business Courts. In November 2024, the First Division sided with Reese Marketos and remanded one of the firm’s oil and gas disputes back to Dallas County’s 193rd District Court, marking the first jurisdictional ruling issued by the Texas Business Courts since they opened Sept. 1, 2024.
“Trial lawyers want to be where the action is,” said founding partner Pete Marketos, who co-led the trial with Bexley. “We’re proud Reese Marketos has been part of the Texas Business Courts’ earliest milestones.”
The full Reese Marketos trial team included partners Pete Marketos, Tyler Bexley, and Brett Rosenthal; associates Whitney Wendel and Will Hamilton; and paralegals Dee Dee Carr and Bella Lee. Reese Marketos attorneys Andrew Wirmani, Allison Cook, Kendal Simpson, and Margaret Terwey provided pretrial and briefing support. Appellate co-counsel at trial was Leah Bower at Lehotsky Cohn. The AT&T in-house team on the case included Associate General Counsel Kimberly McCoy and Senior Legal Counsel Kate Marcom.
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