what does an antitrust lawyer do?

What Can Your Friendly Antitrust Lawyer Do for You?

• Antitrust and Business Litigation. Although much of our litigation is, in fact, antitrust litigation, much of it is not. ...
• Transactions and Mergers & Acquisitions. When companies merge or buy each other’s assets, antitrust issues may develop. ...
• Antitrust Counseling. ...
• Administrative Law and Government Antitrust Enforcers. ...
• C riminal Antitrust Law. ...

Full Answer

What does the antitrust law prohibit?

Antitrust laws prohibit a number of business practices that restrain trade. Examples of illegal practices are price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers that are likely to cut back the competitive fervor of certain markets, and predatory acts designed to gain or hold on to monopoly power.

What do antitrust laws allow the government to do?

Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition. Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities, including market allocation, bid rigging, price fixing, and monopolies.

What are the three main antitrust statutes?

are:

• the Sherman Act;
• the Clayton Act; and
• the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA).

What do antitrust laws protect consumers from?

Antitrust legislation is essentially another type of consumer protection. The goal of such legislation is to protect consumers against unfair business practices that limit competition or control prices.

What is an example of a antitrust law?

An example of behavior that antitrust laws prohibit is lowering the price in a certain geographic area in order to push out the competition. For example, a large company sells widgets for $1.00 each throughout the country. Another company goes into business and sells widgets just in California or $. 90 each.

What do antitrust laws make illegal?

Also called “competition laws,” antitrust laws prohibit unfair competition. Competitors in an industry cannot use certain tactics, such as market division, price fixing, or agreements not to compete. And companies cannot abuse their monopoly power to force smaller competitors out of business.

What type of law is antitrust?

Key Takeaways. Antitrust laws are statutes developed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition. Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities, including market allocation, bid rigging, price fixing, and monopolies.

What are the big 3 antitrust laws?

The three major Federal antitrust laws are: The Sherman Antitrust Act. The Clayton Act. The Federal Trade Commission Act.

Why is it called antitrust?

Antitrust law is the law of competition. Why then is it called “antitrust”? The answer is that these laws were originally established to check the abuses threatened or imposed by the immense “trusts” that emerged in the late 19th Century.

What are the four major antitrust laws?

Congress passed the first antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890 as a "comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade." In 1914, Congress passed two additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act, which created the FTC, and the Clayton ...

Why is antitrust law important?

Antitrust laws protect competition. Free and open competition benefits consumers by ensuring lower prices and new and better products. In a freely competitive market, each competing business generally will try to attract consumers by cutting its prices and increasing the quality of its products or services.

Which of the following is considered an antitrust violation?

The most common antitrust violations fall into two categories: (i) Agreements to restrain competition, and (ii) efforts to acquire a monopoly. In the case of a merger, a combination that would likely substantially reduce competition in a market would also violate antitrust laws.

What is an antitrust lawyer?

Antitrust lawyers study markets and competition and are the warriors of courtroom competition between competitors. If you have a legal dispute with a competitor, you should call your friendly antitrust attorney.

Who can help you with antitrust?

An antitrust attorney can help you here too. If you discover that you or your company is under investigation, you should definitely contact an attorney.

What happens if an antitrust agency challenges a merger?

If the antitrust agency actually challenges the transaction, then your antitrust attorney gets to wear his or her litigation or administrative agency hat—de pending upon which agency challenges the merger.

What to do if merger doesn't involve you?

The FTC or DOJ might even call you about a merger in your industry that doesn’t involve you. If that happens, an antitrust lawyer can help you.

What are the types of antitrust violations?

The types of conduct that most often end up as part of a criminal investigation or indictment are the per se violations: mostly price-fixing, market-allocation, and bid-rigging agreements.

What do lawyers do?

Some lawyers focus on litigation. Other attorneys spend their time on transactions or mergers & acquisitions. Many lawyers offer some sort of legal counseling. Another group—often in Washington, DC or Brussels —spend their time close to the government, usually either administrative agencies or the legislature. And perhaps the most interesting attorneys try to keep their clients out of jail.

Can antitrust claims work?

Perhaps they read this blog post. Sometimes they do, indeed, have a potential antitrust claim. But in other instances, an antitrust claim probably won’t work, but another claim might fit, perhaps a Lanham Act claim for false advertising, or tortuous interference with contract, or some sort of state unfair trade practice claim.

What Does an Antitrust Lawyer Do?

An antitrust lawyer is employed by individuals, businesses, and the government to make sure that companies follow antitrust laws. Some activities include:

How Can an Antitrust Lawyer Help Me?

Do you own a growing business? You may want to prevent future legal issues by hiring an antitrust lawyer advise your business transactions. A lawyer can give antitrust counseling, such as in a distribution agreement, a joint venture or merger. An antitrust lawyer can also represent you if your business is accused of violating antitrust laws.

How Much Does an Antitrust Lawyer Cost?

Typically, antitrust attorneys charge by the hour. Some may charge on a contingency basis, which means that you’re billed a percentage only if you win your case. If you don’t win, your lawyer won’t receive any payment. Since a lawyer runs the risk of not being paid, it’s likely you will only be charged a contingency if you have a very strong case.

What Should I Expect When Working with an Antitrust Lawyer?

An antitrust attorney should be honest about your chance winning your case and how long the process will take. If you do end up going to court, it’s a long and expensive proceeding. Even though your attorney will be able to guide you, you have to commit a lot to the case. Expert testimonies are necessary and will add additional costs.

What is antitrust law?

Antitrust Law. Antitrust law is the broad category of federal and state laws that are meant to keep business operating honest and fairly. Antitrust laws regulate the way companies do business. The goal is to level the playing the field in the free market and prevent businesses from having too much power. For the purposes of antitrust law, ...

Why do antitrust laws exist?

Antitrust laws ban companies from taking certain actions in order to develop monopolies. They ban what some people see as deceptive trade practices that companies might want to use in order to try and outperform the competition. To put it another way, antitrust laws prevent companies from using dirty poker in order to stay ahead of the competition.

What are some examples of antitrust laws?

For example, a large company sells widgets for $1.00 each throughout the country. Another company goes into business and sells widgets just in California or $.90 each. In response, the first company lowers their prices just in California to $.80. They’re selling the widgets at a loss just in that state just to push out the new competitor. The second company goes out of business. The first company likely violated antitrust laws by using their large status to lower prices in just one area in order to attack the competition.

What is the Sherman Act?

In each case, the court has to look at exactly what happened and make a determination. The Sherman Act is the seminal law that prohibits antitrust behavior. Courts can pursue civil or criminal penalties that can include up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each violation. Businesses can face a fine of up to $100 million.

What do federal and state agencies do?

Representatives of federal and state agencies bring lawsuits in order to enforce antitrust laws. Specifically, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and state government authorities bring lawsuits on behalf of the government. They bring lawsuits against the companies that they believe may have violated antitrust laws.

What does antitrust law prohibit?

What antitrust laws prohibit are acts intended to form a monopoly by using unfair tactics. The courts use what’s called the “rule of reason” test in order to determine if an act is unlawful. They consider the effect of the business decision on the market.

How much can a business be fined for violating the Clayton Act?

Businesses can face a fine of up to $100 million. They can also face a fine that equals twice the profits they’ve made from the unlawful activity. The Clayton Act is an antitrust law that followed soon after the Sherman Act and specifically identified certain prohibited behaviors.

What is antitrust law?

Jeff White, partner: The antitrust laws are about protecting competition and consumers. They have relevance to products and services sold on a daily basis, and without the antitrust laws we would undoubtedly see much higher prices for those same products and services, less quality, and less innovation.

What is the day in the life of an antitrust litigator?

EH: The “day in the life” of an antitrust litigator runs the gamut. Some days you could be in court arguing dispositive motions, other days you are meeting with clients and C-suite executives to prepare for depositions and discuss case strategy. And some days take you back to law school, and you have to read cases and edit a brief. The common denominator is people skills, as you are always interacting and working with team members from the most junior associate and paralegal to the General Counsel and CEO of a client.

What is BK in antitrust?

BK: They are critical members of the team. They become experts on the client or industry at issue and ensure that the matter runs smoothly, including interfacing with the client, with antitrust counsel for the other party to the transaction, and with the US antitrust agencies.

What is the common denominator in law school?

The common denominator is people skills, as you are always interacting and working with team members from the most junior associate and paralegal to the General Counsel and CEO of a client.

Do junior associates take ownership of M&A matters?

BK: Our M&A transaction matters tend to be staffed leanly so junior associates often have an opportunity to shine and really take ownership of certain aspects of a matter. Partners will rely heavily on associates regardless of their year, although senior associates are more likely to take the lead on communications with the client or antitrust agency.

Will antitrust enforcement be less predictable?

Antitrust enforcement will be less predictable, at least in the near term.

Is the Sherman Act a general statute?

The Sherman Act is a general statute and the law has been developed in the cases. So much of antitrust is arguing why the particular facts of your case are similar or distinguishable from prior cases in other industries, depending on the side you are on for your client.

Why are antitrust laws important?

Antitrust laws also referred to as competition laws, are statutes developed by the U.S. government to protect consumers from predatory business practices. They ensure that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. These laws have evolved along with the market, vigilantly guarding against would-be monopolies and disruptions to ...

What is the goal of antitrust laws?

The goal of these laws is to provide an equal playing field for similar businesses that operate in a specific industry while preventing them from gaining too much power over their competition. Simply put, they stop businesses from playing dirty in order to make a profit. These are called antitrust laws.

What are the three pieces of antitrust law?

Core U.S. antitrust law was created by three pieces of legislation: the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, 1  the Federal Trade Commission Act, 2  and the Clayton Antitrust Act. 3 .

What are the activities that are protected by antitrust laws?

Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities, including but not limited to market allocation, bid rigging, price fixing, and monopolies. Below, we take a look at the activities these laws protect against.

When firms with dominant market shares prepare to enter a merger, the FTC must decide whether the new entity will be?

Horizontal Mergers: When firms with dominant market shares prepare to enter a merger, the FTC must decide whether the new entity will be able to exert monopolistic and anti-competitive pressures on the remaining firms. For example, the company that makes Malibu Rum and had an 8% market share of total rum sales, proposed buying the company that makes Captain Morgan’s rums, which had a 33% of total sales to form a new company holding 41% market share. 7 

What would happen if the laws didn't exist?

If these laws didn't exist, consumers would not benefit from different options or competition in the marketplace. Furthermore, consumers would be forced to pay higher prices and would have access to a limited supply of products and services.

Is predatory pricing a monopoly?

Predatory Pricing: Often hard to prove, and requiring a careful examination on the part of the FTC, predatory pricing can be considered monopolistic if the price cutting firm can cut prices far into the future and has enough market share to recoup its losses down the line.

Where do antitrust attorneys work?

Plenty of antitrust attorneys also spend their whole careers in government, including at state attorney general’s offices. And some antitrust attorneys land in-house positions, though only certain industries need in-house antitrust specialists, like pharmaceutical and tech companies.

What is antitrust law?

The practice of antitrust falls into several big categories: civil and criminal litigation, merger and transactional work, and counseling. Some antitrust lawyers specialize in one or two of these areas, while others maintain broad practices that cover all of them.

What does a mid level associate do?

Mid-level and senior associates work frequently with external vendors on document productions, economic experts in litigation and merger investigations, and attorneys at other firms in joint defense groups. Contact with clients and government investigators increases with seniority.

How do firms structure their antitrust practices?

Firms structure their antitrust practices in varying ways that can have an impact on the type of work a junior associate does. For example, some firms fold their antitrust attorneys into the litigation department, so that junior associates may be staffed to other types of matters as well. Some firms have dedicated attorneys to handle the somewhat specialized work of pre-merger antitrust filings while others do not.

What is merger litigation?

Merger litigation, though uncommon, involves preliminary injunctions and moves at an intense pace. Class-action litigation tends to have a longer time horizon but can still involve time crunches around major milestones and, needless to say, becomes more fast-paced the closer it gets to trial.

What is the importance of good judgment in antitrust?

Good judgment is essential to be able to sort through the many gray areas that arise in antitrust and provide useful advice to clients.

What is the strong public policy element of antitrust?

The strong public policy element of antitrust means there are always interesting debates to be had about how aggressive enforcement should be, what types of business conduct the antitrust laws should address, and which economic and legal tools should be applied.

Antitrust and Business Litigation

Transactions and Mergers & Acquisitions

Antitrust Counseling

Administrative Law and Government Antitrust Enforcers

• Finally, the Federal Trade Commission is kind of a big deal in the antitrust world. They are one of two federal antitrust agencies, along with the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. An antitrust attorney becomes an administrative lawyer when they have a client with FTC-dealings. These matters could range from clients that are targets ...

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Criminal Antitrust Law