Overview
We know that good antitrust advice and representation requires a thorough understanding of each client’s business and industry. This knowledge and experience helps us provide practical, focused antitrust advice and counseling. Above all, our lawyers understand that clients have businesses to run, in addition to complying with the antitrust laws — so we focus on solutions to issues involving competition laws. We counsel a diverse group of international and domestic companies - from small startups to Fortune 50 conglomerates. Locke Lord also represents partnerships and individuals in a wide variety of antitrust and competition issues, from e-business and the Internet to complex joint ventures and divestitures.
Our breadth of experience includes not only litigation involving civil and criminal antitrust violations, but also the transactional implications of antitrust law. We can act as a courtroom advocate, a negotiator working with antitrust enforcement agencies, a counselor on the antitrust implications of business plans, and an internal investigator of antitrust compliance.
Locke Lord antitrust attorneys have the extensive knowledge of business, economics and law needed to litigate cases involving claims of alleged price fixing, customer allocation agreements, group boycotts, dealer-termination, price discrimination, predatory pricing, illegal standard setting, tying issues, bundled discounts, monopolization, and attempted monopolization. We have unique, extensive antitrust experience in industries including energy, financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals and health care. That background pays immediate dividends, as we can more efficiently investigate new cases and develop litigation strategies. In both antitrust litigation and in advising on mergers and acquisitions, we have significant experience negotiating with federal and state regulators, defending clients during civil investigations by these entities, and negotiating compliance packages and consent decrees.
Businesses often find antitrust questions emerging as they make decisions on how to deal with customers, suppliers, employees, and competitors. We help design and execute antitrust compliance programs and assess the antitrust implications of price restraints, territorial and customer restrictions, licenses, supply agreements, dealer terminations, information exchanges with competitors, and other competitive strategies. We are well-versed in price discrimination law under the Robinson-Patman Act, as well as the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for intellectual property and the health care industry. We can direct focused internal antitrust compliance investigations, and translate our findings into effective recommendations for future compliance initiatives.
Our litigation lawyers are admitted to practice in state, federal district, and federal appellate courts nationwide, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. We are well represented in professional organizations, and many of our attorneys are members of the American College of Trial Lawyers and are state certified in civil trial law. We are active speakers and writers on the most pressing competition law and litigation topics.
Litigation
Antitrust actions are often manipulated by competitors or customers seeking an advantage in the courtroom that they cannot achieve in the marketplace. Locke Lord commonly handles difficult, complex, and high-stakes antitrust disputes and government investigations. As national antitrust counsel for many companies, we regularly appear before the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and state antitrust enforcement agencies, as well as in federal and state courts.
Our antitrust trial lawyers have broad, deep experience in litigating Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and Robinson-Patman Act issues. We represent companies across the full spectrum of challenging antitrust cases. We are at the forefront of antitrust class action work.
Transactions and Counseling
Locke Lord attorneys counsel businesses of all sizes about antitrust implications in their transactions and business practices. We have years of experience dealing with acquisitions and divestitures, partnership and joint venture formation, marketing and distribution programs and other vertical arrangements, pricing policies, Robinson-Patman Act issues, and other day-to-day business activities. We have the skills and experience to represent clients in multiple foreign jurisdictions around the globe.
In the complex world of mergers and acquisitions, our attorneys file pre-merger notices with the FTC and Department of Justice on pending acquisitions, as required under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act. We help clients apply for HSR exemptions regarding their transactions (speeding up the transaction and reducing costs by eliminating the need to file an HSR notice) and comply with Second Requests for information. We are experienced with consent decrees and compliance with administrative agreements.
Our longtime experience in this arena includes the merger of the two largest providers in the deathcare industry. We helped our client respond to a Second Request from the FTC as well as to investigations by several states’ attorneys general. Ultimately, our attorneys negotiated a divestiture package to satisfy the concerns of federal and state regulators. We represented the largest natural gas pipeline company in the country in an acquisition. We have counseled a number of the nation’s largest insurance and other financial services firms in mergers and divestitures.
Locke Lord also counsels a diverse group of companies on issues that surface with distributors, suppliers, customers, employees, and competitors. We are experienced in issues of price-fixing, resale price maintenance, tying arrangements, and price discrimination, as well as less-defined claims involving “exclusionary conduct.” Our lawyers advise clients on compliance with federal and state antitrust and deceptive trade practices laws and agency guidelines. We also assist with the formation of Preferred Provider Organizations, Preferred Health Alliances, and other health care related entities.
Other key areas of Locke Lord’s extensive transaction and counseling experience include the following categories:
- Pricing – We help structure pricing policies under the Robinson-Patman Act for the Southwest’s largest cellular provider and the largest concession stand distributor in the United States. We also organized and implemented Minimum Advertised Pricing Policies and Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Pricing (MSRP) policies.
- Marketing Arrangements – We analyze and review joint marketing, joint purchasing and exclusive supply/retailers contracts for oil and gas marketers, suppliers and retailers. For example, our lawyers regularly assist the trading division of one of the “super major” oil companies in drafting and negotiating exclusive supply arrangements, territorial restrictions, and joint purchasing contracts for a host of petroleum products.
- E-Business Issues – Locke Lord's experience with Internet-related antitrust issues is extensive. We frequently counsel clients on online discounters and how to address minimum advertised pricing policies and MSRP policies. Our attorneys know how to organize business-to-business (B2B) and other online marketplaces to eliminate antitrust concerns and ensure fair and open competition.
- Compliance Counseling – We conduct counseling and training sessions on antitrust topics unique to our clients and their industries. We direct internal corporate investigations of antitrust compliance. For example, we have counseled power traders and other commodities traders in antitrust topics related to cooperative trading ventures and group training. We counsel insurer trade associations and underwriting syndicates. We counsel industrial and consumer product companies on distribution issues. We draft and implement antitrust compliance policies for these and other client companies.