Antitrust significantly impacts commercial business throughout the United States – from monopoly lawsuits against Big Tech to horizontal price-fixing cases to the development of antitrust compliance programs for start-ups. Irrespective of size, businesses must comply with antitrust laws, trade regulations and consumer protection rules to help avoid liabilities.
Saul Ewing’s antitrust attorneys advise large and small corporations and corporate officers in a variety of industries — from pharmaceuticals to higher education, real estate and insurance — on antitrust, trade regulation and consumer protection matters at the state and federal levels across the United States. We are highly experienced in all aspects of antitrust litigation, from motion practice to complex discovery, engagement and work with experts, settlement of individual and class antitrust claims, class certification and trials.
Our team advises on:
- Antitrust investigations and enforcement, with our attorneys who include former federal prosecutors
- Civil antitrust litigation, defending companies and executives in litigation and representing them when they want to opt-out of class actions
- Antitrust counseling matters, including on Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 issues, pricing policies, distribution and franchise practices, distributor and dealer termination, joint ventures, advertising, and warranties
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Compliance programs, including guidance on and development and ongoing maintenance of policies and procedures
Key Contacts
View a selection of our antitrust representations.
- A private university accused of coordinating financial aid awards with other elite universities through adoption of common methodologies for determining financial need.
- An insurance broker accused in Florida state court of attempting to monopolize the market for reinsurance broking through its use of restrictive covenants.
- A life sciences services provider in the successful outcome of an antitrust claim brought by a generic pharmaceutical company alleging that our client illegally conspired with its branded pharmaceutical supplier to monopolize the market for a kidney stones drug.
- A chemical company in connection with multi-district antitrust litigation, which has been consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and in related state-court cases pending in Illinois and Virginia.
- An environmental waste company in claims against the major railroads regarding the adoption of coordinated fuel surcharges.
- A pet food company in recovery of damages in an international price-fixing case in a Washington, D.C. court.
- A manufacturer in defeating antitrust claims brought by a distributor of industrial pumps against it in a California district court alleging wide-spread antitrust conspiracy in connection with a new form of a distribution agreement and other market activities, helping the client not only defeat the litigation but obtain the distributor’s signature on the new distribution contract.
- A car rental provider in a class action in Illinois alleging deceptive advertising and violations of consumer fraud act.
- Stockholders in a beer, wine and spirits distribution company in the sale of their remaining 89 percent of common stock to several trusts owned by the principals of another beverage distribution company, which included advising on Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act matters.
- A technology company when it was served with a non-party document subpoena as part of a federal antitrust suit in the Southern District of Florida. The subpoena related to the company’s sales of electronic article surveillance (EAS) security tags in the U.S. retail market and sought a significant amount of its sales information, including proprietary and confidential business records.
- A NASDAQ-listed company that manufactures and supplies casino table game equipment in the successful negotiation and execution of a merger agreement to sell 100 percent of the company for $110 million in a going-private transaction to a large Japanese gaming supplies manufacturing group. Our team successfully addressed a variety of deal complexities, including antitrust issues.
- A luxury goods manufacturer in connection with an investigation and subsequent injunctive action seeking to bar the merger of two rivals.
- A Canadian public cannabis company that operates a number of cannabis assets throughout the U.S. in its acquisition of a medical cannabis grower and a medical cannabis processor based in the U.S. Our team advised on multiple areas of deal complexities, including helping to ensure antitrust compliance with the supply agreements being negotiated as part of the deal.
- A Scandinavian shipping company accused of market allocation in multiple federal and state civil lawsuits arising from the alleged conspiracy, as well as defending the same company against the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to indict it through enforcement of an amnesty agreement.
- An international cable producer in connection with investigation of price fixing allegations across multiple jurisdictions.
- A Canadian printing technology firm in a post-merger second review by the Federal Trade Commission.
- An appraisal management company in claims against a state licensing organization controlled by the company’s competitors.
- A mortgage company accused of Texas state antitrust violations through the use of restrictive covenants in employment contracts.
