Antitrust and Unfair Competition

Nexsen Pruet’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition Practice Group, which is lead by Marguerite Willis and David Eddy, has an extensive background in counseling clients regarding federal and state antitrust and trade regulation laws governing all facets of competition, including pricing, distribution agreements, marketing programs, competitor collaboration, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and advertising issues.  The Practice Group helps clients develop solutions to achieve their business objectives while avoiding antitrust exposure.  The Group also develops antitrust compliance guidelines and provides antitrust compliance training for our clients.

The Practice Group has significant expertise in representing clients in private antitrust litigation and in government antitrust investigations.  The lawyers in the Group have represented clients in federal and state courts throughout the United States, as both defendants and plaintiffs, in numerous cases involving claims under the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Robinson Patman Act.  Many of these cases have involved, in addition, state business tort claims, such as claims for unfair competition under state statutes and tortious interference with contract, as well as claims for false advertising under the Lanham Act.

The lawyers in this Practice Group have handled many complex civil cases, including major treble damage actions, nationwide class actions, and consolidated multi-district litigation.  Representing clients in class action cases is an area of particular expertise for this Group.  For example, the Group recently defeated two class action suits filed in South Carolina state court prior to class certification.

Lawyers in this Practice Group have also had recent success in representing clients that were victimized and injured by violations of the antitrust laws.  We filed a class action against the world’s largest paper and wood products company for illegally fixing prices paid to sellers of pulpwood timber in violation of the Sherman Act.  After we successfully obtained class certification, the case recently was settled and class members received a substantial monetary payment.  We also represented more than twenty textile, non-woven and carpet companies that were injured by price-fixing and customer allocation of polyester staple fiber.   Through effective settlement negotiations, we were able to obtain substantial monetary recoveries for these clients.

Lawyers in this Group have represented clients engaged in a diverse array of industries and product lines, including, among others, the textile, wood and forest products, pharmaceutical, electronic products, outdoor advertising, health care, chemical, petroleum, aerospace, food products, agricultural products, and fire arms industries.

Representative cases handled by lawyers in this Group include:

• Defense of multiple multi-billion dollar nationwide and statewide class actions against major pharmaceutical companies for alleged price fixing conspiracies.
• Defense of nationwide class action against major oil companies for alleged conspiracy to impose tie-in and exclusive dealing arrangements on independent station operators.
• Defense of multi-million dollar actions against manufacturers and distributors arising out of distributor terminations.
• Prosecution of multi-million dollar action between major competitor corporations involving monopolization, conspiracy, and boycott claims.
• Prosecution of class action for fixing prices for pulpwood timber at artificially low levels. 
• Representation of 20+ textile companies as plaintiffs in pursuing antitrust claims for price-fixing and customer allocation against the US producers of polyester staple fiber.

Lawyers in this Group have represented clients before the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice on the following representative matters:

• Department of Justice investigations into allegations of price fixing.
• Federal trade Commission investigations into claims of alleged price fixing, resale price maintenance, and group boycott.
• Multi-billion dollar merger of the two US manufacturers of commercial jet aircraft.
• Multi-billion dollar joint venture combining the downstream refining, pipeline, and marketing assets of two major integrated oil companies.

This Practice Group is very experienced in handling complex cases of significant import to their clients.  In addition, the Practice Group utilizes the firms’ state-of-the-art litigation support infrastructure and the latest and most powerful litigation and trial presentation software to handle major document review projects, deposition management, exhibit generation, and trial preparation in a very cost-effective and results-oriented manner.  For example, the Group recently defended two cases with damages claimed in excess of one billion dollars which required the production and review of millions of pages of documents and hundreds of depositions.

Lawyers in this Group have represented major corporate clients such as Monsanto, Scherling Plough, McDonnell Douglas, Texaco, Shell, Nestle, Dana, among others.