Overview
Our Antitrust/Competition lawyers take pride in having expansive knowledge and extensive experience handling the full range of antitrust regulation challenges facing businesses in today’s highly competitive and changing landscape.
We regularly represent clients in criminal antitrust matters (both investigations and trials), class-action antitrust lawsuits, actions brought by customers and suppliers, actions by or against competitors, and monopolization cases. We have significant experience litigating the full range of antitrust claims, including price-fixing, bid-rigging, vertical restraints, and price discrimination, on both the plaintiff and the defense sides.
We have internationally recognized knowledge and experience in the overlap of technology, intellectual property (IP), and competition issues, including those relating to joint or collective IP activity: standards setting, formation of proprietary specifications, joint licensing (including formation and operation of patent pools), and collective defense. And we bring this background to the strategic competition issues affecting technology companies in life sciences, telecommunications, wireless technologies and services, broadband, internet, the internet of things, e-commerce, and online services.
Advising on the competitive and antitrust regulation effects of corporate transactions, we help clients with the analysis of potential competitive impacts of the proposed transactions, and we assist them in navigating obstacles presented by competition agencies when transactions are challenged both in the United States and abroad, where we work with our network of firms outside the United States. We have industry-leading experience in the often-difficult analysis required for preparing and filing Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (HSR Act) notifications with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, and the team counsels on the application of the HSR Act and compliance with its provisions.
While we are capable of litigating and trying even the most complex antitrust cases, we recognize that our role is to serve our clients’ business strategies and goals, and that settlement can be–and often is–the best option. At the outset of each matter, we help the client assess the likely value of the matter and, based on that calculation, determine the best strategy to effectively and efficiently resolve the matter. Some matters are “bet the company” situations and justify large expenditures of time and money, but some are not; it is always in our clients’ best interest to make that determination upfront and to proceed accordingly.
We immerse ourselves in our clients’ businesses and industries to better understand our clients’ goals, operations, market positions, and competition and to help our clients tailor their business strategies and conduct to comply with competition law and policy. This includes counseling clients on the antitrust implications of a wide range of business practices, including distribution policies and programs, pricing policies, trade associations, information exchanges, and issues that regularly impact companies with large market shares.
We also work closely with our clients’ compliance officers to ensure that their companies adhere to the law, while at the same time allowing them the operational freedom to compete hard and succeed. We have designed and executed corporate antitrust compliance programs, including awareness presentations, antitrust training for sales forces and for C-suite officers, and full antitrust audits for corporations and organizations in a wide variety of industries, including consumer products, health care, energy/electricity/gas, electronics, chemicals, broadcasting, and paper products.
