Antitrust & Competition
We offer practical, hands-on guidance and innovative solutions to antitrust and competition law issues around the world. Such solutions derive from our team’s extensive experience confronting and resolving issues before enforcement authorities, tribunals and courts. The knowledge and experience gained over the years is shared within our team, ensuring that the advice received by our clients reflects changes in policy at the national and international level. Our antitrust and competition group is a major component within Squire Sanders. Many of our lawyers have spent portions of their careers with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) or the European Commission. With skilled antitrust lawyers located around the world, we counsel clients on:
- Mergers, Acquisitions and Other Business Combinations
- International Cartels and Price Fixing Conspiracies
- Litigation and Dispute Resolution
- EU State Aid and Procurement
- Everyday Advice and Guidance
Mergers, Acquisitions and Other Business Combinations
More than 90 countries around the world now have some form of merger notification or clearance regime. Our global team is well placed to determine when such merger control requirements are triggered and to evaluate and assess the competitive implications of specific business combinations. Our experience enables us to structure transactions so as to minimize regulatory hurdles and ensure a timely closing. Given our experience, we know how antitrust and competition enforcement authorities are likely to view particular transactions. We understand what types of arguments will persuade enforcement authorities to permit business combinations to proceed. In this regard, we regularly advise both merging parties and complainants on in-depth “Phase II” or “Second Request” merger control reviews, and we have handled scores of settlements and undertakings with competition authorities when necessary to permit a transaction to proceed. We have been involved in some of the largest mergers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Our expertise in this area also extends to Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) reviews, in which we have successfully resolved numerous investigations involving critical infrastructure and technology acquisitions, as well as acquisitions of US entities by foreign governments.
International Cartels and Price Fixing Conspiracies
The detection and prosecution of cartel offenses are the highest priorities of antitrust and competition enforcement authorities. We have a long history of handling these challenging cases successfully and can draw on our team of experienced lawyers from around the world. As more and more jurisdictions have criminalized price-fixing violations, the investigation of these violations has required increasingly sophisticated expertise. Our international cartel group has that experience and expertise. Our team includes lawyers who have appeared directly before enforcement agencies not only in the United States and before the European Commission, but also on behalf of clients with regard to investigations by authorities in France, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Japan and the UK.
We are respected worldwide for our ability to seamlessly coordinate and manage the defense of government price-fixing actions and resulting civil cases, regardless of industry or locale. Similarly, our worldwide reach has proven invaluable in negotiating leniency agreements with competition authorities not only in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) and Europe, but also in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Because leniency statutes vary from country to country, and action under these statutes is often time-critical, it is vital that clients have the type of competent and experienced representation that is provided by our lawyers. Indeed, few legal practices can match the worldwide reach, experience and responsive working relationships that are provided by our lawyers.
Litigation and Dispute Resolution
Squire Sanders has deep experience in litigation matters involving antitrust and competition issues. Because of the potential for treble damage awards and criminal liability for corporations and individuals in certain jurisdictions (e.g., the United States) as well as the emergence of damage actions in others (e.g., the EU), cases involving antitrust and competition issues pose particular risks. These cases also tend to be substantial in scope and complexity. Our antitrust litigation group combines a substantive knowledge of antitrust and competition laws and issues with the practical trial experience that is required to present a successful, cost-effective defense or claim. Our trial team has litigated a wide range of antitrust matters – monopolization cases, dealer terminations and preliminary injunctions in merger cases. Our lawyers have extensive experience and have assisted corporations and individuals in connection with criminal grand jury and civil government investigations, antitrust trials and class actions, pretrial motions, discovery and trial preparations as well as antitrust appellate advocacy. In addition, commercial disputes involving antitrust issues are increasingly being resolved by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and our lawyers regularly advise clients in such ADR proceedings, including the resolution of international sporting disputes before bodies such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.
EU State Aid and Procurement
In an area requiring very specific expertise and experience, our practice has a leading position advising companies with respect to the EU rules prohibiting certain forms of direct and indirect state subsidies and the highly complex rules governing governmental tenders throughout the EU. We advise national governments and awarding bodies, recipients of state support, bidders and third-party complainants, and regularly represent such parties before the European Commission and the European Courts in Luxembourg, as well as in procurement matters before national courts throughout the EU. Our leading position is recognized not only by our involvement in the most significant state aid and procurement cases but also by the leading legal directories.
Everyday Advice and Guidance
Our antitrust and competition group has extensive experience counseling clients. We represent clients with respect to the most common antitrust and competition matters including:
- Distribution agreements and territorial restrictions
- Joint selling, marketing or R&D agreements and information exchange
- Patents and trademarks
- Antitrust and competition compliance programs
- Trade association activities
- US antitrust exemptions
- Advertising
- Privacy issues
- Bid-rigging
- Dominance and monopolization issues
- Price discrimination and boycotts
- Territorial restrictions
- Tying
Practice Expertise
Representative Experience
- Representing defense contractor Advanced Testing Technologies, Inc. in government investigations into possible export violations.
- Advising a major producer of fuel additives in its purchase of a refrigeration lubricants business for US$125.2 million from a UK-based specialty chemicals firm. Through a joint effort of by our Washington DC and Brussels offices we also represented our client before the German Bundeskartellamt in clearing the acquisition.
- Advising a major non-US airline in parallel antitrust investigations by the US Department of Justice and the European Union involving criminal allegations of cargo rate coordination in numerous markets. The defendants also included most of the world's major airlines.
- Representing a leading manufacturer of antifreeze in a Federal Trade Commission investigation challenging its advertising.
- Advising a major food group on trade barriers and investment restrictions around the world.
- Defending a US-based airline in an investigation of its acquisition of a large tour operator.
- Serving as counsel to the purchaser, a publicly traded, Japan-based global printing and printing products company, in its US$650 million acquisition of the stock of one of the leading worldwide producers of photomasks, used in the manufacture of semiconductors; the company operates the industry's most expansive global photomask production network, spanning China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States.
- Establishing procedures and obtaining (deemed export) approvals for non-US person employees, professors and students working in the laboratory of a major educational institution.
- Advising a major US-based producer of fuel additives in its purchase of an entire metalworking product line from a private company based in Pennsylvania. We represented our client in a merger investigation before the Federal Trade Commission.
- Defending a leading hospital in connection with an antitrust class action proceeding alleging price-fixing of medical resident salaries. The case was dismissed.