Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP fields a team of experienced antitrust practitioners who deliver premier legal services on a cost effective and “rapid response” basis. Our group is able to handle cutting-edge issues in the representation and counseling of clients facing litigation, criminal and civil investigations, and transactions ranging from global mergers and acquisitions to supply chain management and settlements of patent litigation. Our antitrust lawyers have broad experience dealing with the pharmaceutical, biotech, life sciences, healthcare, financial services, gaming, insurance, jewelry, retail, communications, media, technology, transport, sports and petrochemical industries.
Our antitrust attorneys have experience in dealing with the United States Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and many states of the United States.
Outside of the United States, we have regular contact with the European Commission in Brussels and with the Office of Fair Trading and Competition Commission in the United Kingdom. In jurisdictions where we are not directly represented, we work with carefully selected local firms, which gives us immediate access to the "best and brightest" competition lawyers in each jurisdiction.
LitigationMembers of our Antitrust Practice Group regularly appear in courts around the country in competition-related issues, many of them high-profile.
We defeated a more than $3 billion Sherman Act claim asserted by United Airlines and its Creditors Committee against indenture trustees involved in joint efforts to settle debts incurred to finance 175 large passenger jets.
United Airlines, Inc. v. U. S. Bank, N.A., 406 F.3d 918, and 409 F.3d 812 (7th Cir. 2005).
We have extensive trial experience, including trial of criminal antitrust matters. Indeed, we are one of the few firms to have defended a criminal antitrust case at trial.
United States v. Salomon (S.D.N.Y. 2002).
We defended a large petrochemical company in Multi-District litigation, brought by class and non-class direct purchasers alleging price fixing, as well as in related indirect purchaser cases in 13 states. In
re Polyester Staple Antitrust Litig.,259 F.Supp.2d 1376 (J.P.M.L. 2003).
We are defense counsel for several insurance companies in multi-district litigation concerning an alleged bid-rigging conspiracy between brokers and insurers. In
re Insurance Brokerage Litigation (D. N.J. MDL 1663).
We successfully defended a national cable-television operator against claims that it violated the Sherman Act by refusing to accept ads from a particular advertising agency.
Prime Communications v. AT&T Broadband (D.Mass. 2003).
We defended dozens of health care defendants alleged to have excluded various specialty practitioners in federal class action litigation.
We defended a large software manufacturer against a "kitchen sink" global attack on its distribution practices.
In tandem with our intellectual property and patent attorneys, we have counseled clients on the complex antitrust issues that arise in patent litigation and with patent settlements or licensing arrangements, particularly in litigation involving pharmaceutical services and products.
We have substantial experience litigating, arbitrating, and mediating distribution claims, including those with statutory claims under the Sherman Act, Lanham Act, and Robinson-Patman Act (and their state analogues), as well as those asserting a wide variety of business torts. Our lawyers frequently speak on distribution issues, and recently a member of our Antitrust Practice Group was retained as a witness on dual distribution systems.
Outside of the United States, members of our London team have experience of defending and pursuing follow-on damages claims before the English High Court, as well as of litigation before the specialist Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Criminal and Civil Investigations We have represented clients in numerous criminal and civil antitrust investigations that the regulators closed without taking action. We know the staff and senior decision makers at the federal enforcement agencies (US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission) and in various state attorneys general offices. Our global team includes a former senior official from the UK's Office of Fair Trading, who retains good contacts within the OFT, as well as at the European Commission and a number of other national competition authorities. We have been involved in investigations in a wide variety of industries, including petrochemical, pharmaceuticals, and biotech.
We successfully obtained closure of a major FTC investigation into the combination of two biotech companies, each of whom was racing to develop a new drug to treat the same disease. The favorable decision by the FTC in January 2004 was the first ever in the relatively new area of “innovation markets.” (Decision reported at
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/01/genzyme.htm).
Transactions/Mergers & Acquisitions Our antitrust attorneys work as part of the transaction team on mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures – we advise regarding antitrust risk assessment and assist with regulatory compliance (Hart-Scott-Rodino) in the United States, European Union and throughout the world.
Recent representative merger transactions where we have provided antitrust and competition law risk analysis and regulatory advice include: a large corporate transaction that presented competition law issues in more than 35 different countries; regularly advising an international entity in the gaming industry; preliminary antitrust advice in connection with an international life sciences deal between two public companies; corporate and antitrust advice necessary to conclude an acquisition by a large software company of a leading enterprise publishing company, requiring regulatory approvals in the United States, and several foreign jurisdictions.
We are currently engaged in restructuring the global distribution system of a well-recognized,
Fortune 500 manufacturer and distributor of consumer goods. For this engagement, our attorneys are reconciling intellectual property and antitrust issues on both a local and a worldwide basis.
Supply Chain Management We regularly assist clients in establishing and maintaining complex distribution systems in a variety of industries, ranging from travel/tour operators to plumbing supplies.
This experience includes the pharmaceutical or biotech industries, where complex regulatory issues can constrain pricing flexibility and other behavior, and where safeguarding intellectual property rights is of paramount concern.
Antitrust Risk Assessment and Reduction Finally, we help our clients avoid antitrust problems in the first place. Most antitrust risk is created inadvertently by well-intentioned, but uninformed employees. We have developed a number of comprehensive corporate compliance programs and routinely deliver compliance presentations to clients and to their trade associations.
We assist clients in creating programs to minimize the creation of the “bad document,” which can fuel an antitrust claim, as well as to implement best practices regarding record retention, including electronic records.
We advise clients in designing "quick response lines" to obtain immediate antitrust guidance and in building “fire walls” where possible to limit corporate liability for employee malfeasance.