Antitrust and Trade Regulation

Our antitrust attorneys represent class, individual, and opt-out plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal courts throughout the country. True trial lawyers, we use the knowledge acquired in our experiences on both sides of the courtroom to fuel the litigation strategies that we deploy for clients with competition-based claims. Based on the depth of our experience, we bring a sophisticated level of insight to all of our antitrust representations, including:

Private Antitrust Litigation
We have been involved in high-profile private antitrust cases for nearly a half century and have obtained some of the largest antitrust recoveries on record, including the largest known antitrust class action settlement in the history of the Sherman Act.

Antitrust and Intellectual Property
Our antitrust lawyers have brought and defended cutting-edge cases at the complex intersection of antitrust and intellectual property law. We counsel clients on the competitive concerns raised in the ownership and licensing of intellectual property, and on the myriad ways in which anticompetitive issues can be implicated in patent infringement and other intellectual property litigation.

Government Investigations
We represent clients in government investigations by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and state enforcement agencies. We assist clients who are targets of government investigations, witnesses who have been subpoenaed to provide information and clients who have been injured by anticompetitive behavior.

Mergers, Acquisitions and Joint Ventures
We provide risk assessments and analyses of the antitrust implications of proposed mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other business alliances. We also represent parties concerned about the anticompetitive effects of proposed mergers, and assist them in effectively presenting their view to the government enforcement agencies.

Antitrust Counseling
Our antitrust lawyers provide counseling on varied issues including sales and marketing practices, distribution agreements, licensing, trade association activities, and antitrust compliance training to in-house counsel and business executives.

We represent corporations, manufacturers, and individual business owners and investors and shareholders, in numerous industries including:

• Agricultural Cooperatives
• Cable Television
• Financial
• Food and Beverage
• Health Care
• Insurance
• Manufacturing
• Oil
• Retail
• Software
• Technology

Plaintiffs

In re Automotive Parts Antitrust Class Action: Involving alleged price-fixing conspiracies as to various automotive parts that are components of new motor vehicles. Partial settlement to date of more than $1 billion.

In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Litigation, 05-MD-1720 (JG)(JO):  Reached a $7.25 billion antitrust settlement on behalf of a class of approximately seven million U.S. merchants who accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards and debit cards for the purchase of goods and services. The defendants included Visa and MasterCard, and major card-issuing banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Capital One. The settlement, which would have resolved the lawsuit, is believed to be the largest settlement of a private antitrust case in the 120-year history of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. §1 et seq.) and also included important reforms of the payment card industry. The settlement was granted final approval in the District Court on December 13, 2013 over the objections of several class members. Some of those objectors appealed from the final approval order, and on June 30, 2016 a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and vacated the District Court’s order, and remanded the case to the District Court “for further proceedings not inconsistent with” the Court of Appeals’ opinion.

Minnesota Tobacco Litigation: In May 1998, we reached an historic settlement in the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota's lawsuit against the major cigarette manufacturers after 15 weeks of trial. The case was settled for $6.13 billion on behalf of the State of Minnesota and $469 million on behalf of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

In re Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation: Over $1.2 billion in settlements for an alleged global conspiracy to fix surcharges for air cargo shipping services. Defendants in the decade-long litigation included many of the world’s largest airlines.

Vitamins Antitrust Litigation: Represented opt-out plaintiffs in Vitamins litigation for decade-long price-fixing cartel of vitamin manufacturers. Clients included Land O’ Lakes, Inc., Hormel Foods Corporation, CHS Co-Operatives, and Gold’n Plump Poultry. The cases settled for an amount in excess of $250,000,000.

In re Methionine Antitrust Litigation, MDL 1311, (N.D. Cal.): Settlement of $35 million for agribusiness clients challenging international price-fixing cartel.

Represented Best Buy in multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing in the market for cathode ray tubes in televisions. The claims resulted in confidential settlements with several large electronics manufacturers, including LG, Panasonic, and Toshiba.

Recovered almost $400 million in damages in price fixing litigation against cartel of LCD panel manufacturers.

Anastasio, et al v. Total Gas & Power North America, Inc.: Appointed co-lead class counsel on behalf of a class of persons who purchased or sold, from June 2009 to June 2012, physical over-the-counter natural gas contracts or natural gas financial contracts (such as natural gas futures, options, swaps and other derivative instruments) alleging that one of the world’s largest natural gas exploration, production, refinement, marketing, shipping and trading companies illegally manipulated the physical and financial natural gas market in the United States. The class alleges that Defendants’ scheme (intentionally engaging in, and reporting, non-economic transactions in the physical natural gas market) was designed to move indexed natural gas market prices in a way that financially benefited Defendants’ related financial positions.

Defense

Insulate SB, Inc. v. Advanced Finishing Systems, Inc., Lead counsel for fluid-handling equipment manufacturer Graco Inc. in putative nationwide antitrust class action alleging unlawful business acquisitions and boycott, exclusive-dealing, and monopolization conspiracies. We obtained the dismissal of all claims with prejudice, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31188 (D. Minn. Mar. 11, 2014), and we represented Graco in the appeal, where the judgment was affirmed. __ F.3d __, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 14233 (8th Cir. Aug. 13, 2015).  

In re Wholesale Grocery Products Antitrust Litig., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4584 (D. Minn. Jan. 13, 2013): Lead counsel representing grocery wholesaler SuperValu Inc. in consolidated federal antitrust actions on behalf of putative multi-state class of grocery retailers challenging 2003 asset exchange transaction. Obtained dismissal of several class representatives in favor of arbitration in 2011 (appeal pending), denial of class certification in 2012, and summary judgment dismissing all remaining claims in 2013.

Digital Sun v. The Toro Company: Obtained dismissal and successful resolution of antitrust, California unfair business practices, and common law fraud claims against The Toro Company. The complaint involved smart sprinkler technology, and arose out of Toro's consideration of a potential business relationship, including licensing.  

Omnicare, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.: Represented defendants UnitedHealth Group, Inc. and PacifiCare, Inc. in an antitrust lawsuit involving alleged price-fixing and fraud related to prescription drug reimbursement under the federal Medicare Part D program.  Plaintiff Omnicare sought damages exceeding $1 billion and permanent injunctive relief.  After summary judgment motion was argued in August 2008, the U.S. District Court granted summary judgment to defendants on all claims in January 2009.  Published decision:  Omnicare, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., 594 F. Supp. 2d 945 (N.D. Ill. 2009).  Summary judgment was subsequently affirmed. Omnicare, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., 629 F.3d 697 (7th Cir. 2011).

Augustine Medical, Inc. v. Tyco et al.:  Antitrust counterclaim to a patent infringement suit dismissed on summary judgment.

Aguilar v. Unocal: Price-fixing class action against gasoline manufacturer dismissed on appeal.

Raymond v. MediaOne: Dismissal of antitrust tying and unfair competition class action against cable television provider.

Federal Trade Commission: Defended Section 5 antitrust allegations by the FTC based on standard-setting theory for reformulated gasoline patents. Won initial decision from Administrative Law Judge Chappell with patents and corporations ultimately purchased by Chevron, ending litigation.

Bristol Hotel v. Aetna et al.: Dismissal of RICO class action brought in Miami, Florida against workers compensation insurers.

* Past results are reported to provide the reader with an indication of the type of litigation we practice. They do not and should not be construed to create an expectation of result in any other case, as all cases are dependent upon their own unique fact situation and applicable law.