Position: Partner

Areas of Practice:
Banking Litigation, Debtor-Creditor Relations,
Securities Litigation, E-Commerce Litigation, Commercial Litigation

Education:
State University of New York at Stony Brook (B.A., 1973); Columbia University (J.D., 1976)

Professional Affiliations:
American Bar Association (Member: Litigation Section; Committee on Securities Regulation, 1984- ; Creditors' Rights Committee, 1986- )

Admissions:
1977, New York; 1978, U.S. District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; 1982, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court; 1984, U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York; 1986, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

Contact Information:
Secretary: Olga Cave
E-mail: skrause@zeklaw.com
Direct telephone number: (212) 826-5305

Add to Outlook

Stuart A. Krause practices in the areas of litigation and creditor's rights. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1976 (where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), he began his legal career at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom as an associate in the litigation department, specializing in securities litigation. In 1980, he joined the firm of Sage Gray Todd & Sims, where he developed an expertise in banking litigation and creditor's rights.

He joined the predecessor to ZEK in 1986 and was a founding partner of ZEK in 1989. At ZEK, he has specialized in banking litigation, with a particular emphasis on the prosecution and defense of fraud claims, and in representing bank and other creditors in their efforts to enforce their claims both in and out of bankruptcy court. He has recently become involved in the burgeoning area of E-Commerce litigation. Stu has helped spearhead the firm's representation of Israeli corporate clients. In Tel Aviv, in February, 2005, Stu and Bruce Goodman addressed the Association of Corporate Counsel in Israel on the topic of “International Arbitration and Mediation."

Stu and his colleagues have successfully defended Citibank in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against a $180 million RICO and common law fraud claim brought by a quasi governmental entity of the Kingdom of Qatar, obtaining a defendant's verdict after a month-long trial (which verdict was affirmed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals). Qatar National Navigation & Transport Co. v. Citibank, N.A., 1998 W.L. 516117 (Aug. 20, 1998), and 1992 W.L. 276565 (Sep. 29, 1992), both aff'd, 182 F.3d 901 (2d Cir. 1999).

Stu has also led ZEK's efforts, on behalf of a Japanese trading company (and member of the Toyota family of companies) Toyota Tsusho America, to prosecute complex fraud and creditor's rights actions, in the Florida state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. The initial amount in controversy exceeded $50 million. A number of such actions were ultimately settled out of court, and one recently resulted in an $8 million judgment.

Stu "enjoys the give and take of complex litigation because it is akin to chess at the grandmaster level. Litigating such cases also requires you to be a bit of a detective, since successfully resolving these cases often involves getting at the truth, not only in terms of the underlying facts, but also with respect to the litigant's motives and goals which underly the fact pattern." Stu has published articles on securities and bankruptcy law, but prefers to grapple with interesting legal issues in the context of actual litigation.

Stu is active in many charitable organizations and devotes a great deal of his leisure time to his efforts in that regard. He is a rabid Yankee and Jets fan.