Jeroen van Kwawegen is co-founding partner of Johnson Van Kwawegen and one of the leading shareholder attorneys in the world. He has recovered more than $4 billion for investors, has led or co-led numerous trials, and has secured corporate governance reforms that changed the boards of the companies he sued. He co-led the trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery over Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla compensation package.
Jeroen represents a wide range of institutional investors in recovering losses from securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. His practice covers securities class actions, fiduciary duty class actions, derivative actions, M&A litigation, and shareholder appraisal actions. He litigates in federal and state courts, works on a contingency basis, and has litigated shareholder cases in the United States for more than 20 years.
Jeroen’s cases involve misrepresentations to investors and breaches of fiduciary duty by corporate insiders. They have produced more than $4 billion in recoveries and corporate governance improvements for investors.
• $1 billion recovered in the Wells Fargo securities litigation concerning the bank’s alleged failure to comply with government consent decrees. The settlement was the largest U.S. securities class action recovery of 2023 and among the largest ever. Jeroen was instrumental in achieving it.
• $180 million recovered in the FirstEnergy derivative action concerning alleged bribery of government officials. Jeroen led the action in Ohio federal court. It produced the largest derivative recovery in the history of the Sixth Circuit, a requirement that six legacy directors leave the board, and a board review of senior executives that led to the replacement of the CEO.
• $162.5 million recovered in the Santander Consumer USA buyout litigation. Jeroen led the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The class of minority stockholders alleged that Santander structured its take-private of SCUSA to keep the company’s pandemic-era profits for itself. The case settled one week before trial.
• $123 million recovered in the Walmart opioid derivative litigation. Jeroen led the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which alleged that Walmart’s directors and officers failed to oversee the distribution and dispensing of prescription opioids. The settlement also requires Walmart to maintain specified corporate governance practices for at least five years.
• $115 million recovered in the Credit Suisse derivative action concerning inadequate risk processes that harmed the bank and contributed to its forced merger with UBS. Jeroen led the
action in New York state court. It produced the largest derivative oversight recovery in the history of the New York state courts.
• $85 million recovered in the MSG Entertainment derivative action. Jeroen led the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which challenged the company’s merger with MSG Networks as unfair to MSG Entertainment and its stockholders. The case settled less than a month before trial.
Tesla / Elon Musk compensation action. Jeroen co-led the trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery challenging Elon Musk’s $56 billion compensation package. The court found that Musk controlled the process by which Tesla’s board approved the package, found the package unfair to Tesla’s stockholders, and rescinded it in January 2024. In December 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the post-trial findings of breach of duty while reversing the remedy.
Jeroen speaks regularly at Columbia, Harvard, and University of Pennsylvania law schools and at the field’s leading forums. In April 2025 he guest lectured in Harvard Law School’s “Deals” course. In 2025 he also spoke at the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, the Columbia Millstein Memorial Conference, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law symposium. He has co-authored multiple academic and professional articles.
Jeroen serves on the board of Legal Services NYC, which provides legal assistance to more than 100,000 New Yorkers in need every year. He serves on the advisory boards of the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School and the Institute for Law & Economics at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Lawdragon (Legends), Forbes (Top 200 Lawyers), Law360 (Class Action MVP, Securities MVP, Titan of the Plaintiffs Bar), The Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, and Chambers USA have recognized Jeroen. The New York Law Journal named him a 2025 finalist for Attorney of the Year, and The National Law Journal named him a finalist in its Winning Litigators category in 2024 and 2025. Jeroen is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, named in 2024.
Jeroen earned his LL.M. from the University of Amsterdam School of Law in 1998 and his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2003
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