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Antitrust Litigation

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Antitrust litigation typically presents multiple challenges:  significant damages exposure, substantively difficult economic and commercial subject matters, and complex procedural settings. V&E has the experience and capability to represent plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes antitrust litigation, in both state and federal courts, and in domestic and international arbitrations.

Scope of practice

V&E litigators have experience in all manner of antitrust and competition-law disputes under state and federal law, including monopolization, restraint of trade, and unfair competition claims, raising antitrust theories including price-fixing, bid-rigging, market division, exclusive dealing, tying arrangements, boycotts, joint purchasing and selling, conscious parallelism, predatory pricing, price discrimination, indirect purchaser claims, abuse of intellectual property rights, and more.

Industry focus and economic expertise

Antitrust litigation requires lawyers who can learn and understand their clients’ businesses, analyze the economic and competitive factors that affect those businesses, and educate judges, juries, and regulators. Having handled antitrust disputes in varied fields like energy, chemicals, technology, health care, natural resources, and securities, and drawing on V&E’s diverse nationwide litigation practices, V&E antitrust lawyers hit the ground running. Our lawyers work with leading outside economists to simplify and present the facts in even the most complicated matters.

Class action and multi-district litigation

Because antitrust claims often involve allegations that businesses engaged in conduct that affected thousands or even millions of customers, antitrust litigation often takes place at a scale that can overwhelm the unprepared. V&E’s antitrust litigators are experienced in class action defense, having repeatedly fought off class certification efforts at the trial and appellate levels in both state and federal courts. When large numbers of parallel individual cases emerge in jurisdictions around a state or around the country, V&E’s experience in multi-district litigation helps clients consolidate and manage the burden of waves of lawsuits.

Experience Highlights

  • Represent Wanhua Chemical (America) Co., Ltd. and Wanhua Chemical Group Ltd. in civil class action litigation alleging a conspiracy to restrict production and supply of chemicals MDI and TDI. V&E also represented Wanhua in connection with a grand jury subpoena, which led to DOJ closing its investigation without taking any action

  • Represent Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc. and affiliates in litigation related to alleged price fixing of several auto parts

  • Represented Southwest Airlines, Inc. in more than 100 lawsuits concerning whether the four major airlines unlawfully agreed to restrain the growth of airline capacity and increase air travel fares

  • Represented AirTran Airways, Inc. in a multi-district antitrust putative class action alleging that AirTran and Delta conspired on first bag fees. V&E won summary judgment in favor of AirTran, which the Eleventh Circuit summarily affirmed in March 2018 and collected statutory costs

  • Represent Maxell, Ltd., Maxell Corporation of America, and Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. in antitrust litigation alleging a conspiracy to fix and raise prices of batteries and finished products containing batteries

  • Represented Heartbrand Beef, Inc. against claims of conspiracy to restrain trade and monopolization in the market for premium beef in the United States; after a seven-day trial, the jury found in favor of the client, awarding both actual and exemplary damages

  • Represented a major independent grocer in a National Advertising Division proceeding concerning price comparison advertising by rival grocery chain

  • Obtained a substantial victory for technology client upholding the district court’s denial of class certification in the In re Optical Disk Drive Products antitrust litigation

  • Representing a global manufacturer of titanium dioxide in a matter pertaining to ongoing titanium dioxide antitrust litigation; the case, brought by an individual company and an alleged nationwide class of indirect purchasers of titanium dioxide, alleges our client and others conspired to fix the prices of titanium dioxide sold in the U.S. during a certain time period; the cases are currently in discovery

  • Represent a major midstream service provider before the Texas Railroad Commission and in related state court litigation regarding demands for access to the company’s distribution system connecting oil and gas terminals, refineries, and import/export facilities

  • Represent a major independent pharmacy chain in allegations that more than 7 million purchases of generic drugs had been mispriced. The state district court granted the pharmacy’s motion for summary judgment and held it was not liable on the class representative’s claims

  • Represented health care system in private civil lawsuits brought by two physicians alleging Section 1 violations associated with the implementation of new credentialing requirements which resulted in the termination of medical staff privileges for the two plaintiffs; both lawsuits were settled favorably on behalf of client

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