Antitrust and Competition

Our clients
Antitrust laws can affect companies in any industry. We have provided counseling and compliance advice to companies of various sizes and in many different industries, including:

• Fortune 500 public companies and their boards of directors
• Manufacturers, distributors and retailers in many industries
• Computer and software manufacturers
• Internet companies
• Hospitals, physician groups, health plans, and health care industry associations
• Specialty producers in manufacturing, chemical and high- tech industries
• Commercial real estate owners and developers

Our practice
Our attorneys counsel clients in all areas of antitrust compliance, including these business issues, which pose antitrust risks:

• Pricing decisions
• Meetings, exchanges of information and relationships with competitors
• Managing customer relationships
• Distribution issues
• Restrictive licensing and other restrictions related to intellectual property
• Refusals to deal
• Exclusive dealing and tying restrictions
• Dealer termination issues
• Mergers, networks, joint ventures, and strategic alliances

We offer antitrust compliance programs, ranging from general legal seminars for management and sales personnel, to programs tailored to the client's needs, and based on careful review or audits of client information and business practices. Our antitrust attorneys also conduct internal investigations and work with special committees within an organization's board when illegal activity is in question.

Representative engagements and successes:

• Representing a leading compact disk manufacturer and a vitamin manufacturer in several price-fixing cases pending in Massachusetts state courts
• Providing lead antitrust counsel in a Massachusetts state court antitrust proceeding against numerous automobile insurance companies involving conspiracy claims of auto body shop labor reimbursement rates
• Representing a major food chain in litigation brought by a competitor alleging bidding irregularities and fraud in connection with a public bid contest for the right to develop highway rest area sites
• Representing a shopping mall developer in an antitrust case arising out of contentious zoning litigation among competing developers in the same geographic area, and successfully obtained a motion to dismiss most of the claims in the first case in a New Hampshire state court to apply the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine
• Representing a specialty paper manufacturer in a federal monopolization claim against a supplier who had abruptly and dramatically raised prices on less than twenty-four hours' notice; the case settled satisfactorily to the client within three months
• Representing the sole provider of radiation therapy facilities in federal court in Montgomery, Alabama, on charges of unlawful exclusive dealing and monopolization, and, after surviving the defendants' motion for summary judgment, settled the case favorably for the client
• Defending a physician group in a five-week jury trial in federal court in Rhode Island, on charges of exclusive dealing and providing radiology services to MRI facilities, ultimately settling the case before the jury reached a verdict
• Obtaining a jury verdict for a defendant, a national manufacturer of diesel truck engines, in federal court in Boston, in a dealer termination case
• Assistance in obtaining dismissal of conspiracy claims in federal court against Massachusetts health plans on claims of exclusionary conduct against chiropractors
• Obtaining dismissal of price discrimination claims in federal court in Boston against a large retail department store on allegations of discriminatory grants of promotional allowances
• Representing one of the oil company defendants in the Apex v. DiMauro litigation in which the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment to all of the defendants, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed as to all but two defendants; the case involved allegations of an antitrust and commodities fraud conspiracy among a number of heating oil companies that had traded contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange, our firm took the lead in moving for and briefing summary judgment
• Obtaining judgment from the First Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of defendant, a race car tire manufacturer, reversing the trial court's judgment for plaintiff, on claims of exclusive dealing and concerted refusals to deal, generating a leading "rule of reason" holding under federal antitrust law
• Representing a health care trade association before the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on boycott and monopoly claims
• Representing several trade associations and accrediting organizations in the health care field
• Representing an acquirer in a contested merger proceeding before the Federal Trade Commission, obtaining a settlement by consent decree that allowed the transaction to proceed
• Representing a party complaining to the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and relevant state authorities about monopolization by a hospital, resulting in a consent decree barring the challenged conduct