Kelley Drye’s resources uniquely balance the interests of our clients both in the courts and at the federal agencies. Through our extensive experience in complex litigation and our specialized skills across a wide range of industries, our antitrust litigators offer efficient and effective solutions to our clients. The firm has successfully litigated a vast array of competition issues, defending clients against government challenges to mergers, civil and criminal cartel actions, and private antitrust litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants. Partners in this practice area have successfully represented clients in large-scale, private treble-damage litigation and in many of the most significant government antitrust cases of this generation. The team represents clients in investigations involving both civil and criminal implications, and also litigates intellectual property matters. Kelley Drye deploys legal resources that carefully balance the interests of our clients and also provided alternative dispute resolution services to potentially avoid litigation altogether.
Clients turn to Kelley Drye for its significant experience in the following areas:
- Civil Investigative Demands – Kelley Drye frequently represents clients served with agency Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs). Whether our client's goal is to minimize the burden of complying with the CID or persuasively presenting its perspective to the agency, we have the experience and the reputation with the antitrust agencies to ensure that the best interests of our clients are served.
- Criminal Investigations – We represent companies or individuals who come under criminal investigation for antitrust offenses such as price-fixing. Kelley Drye's team knows how the government prosecutors work in this specialized area, and how to help clients deal with subpoenas, grand juries, potential co-defendants, and simultaneous investigations in multiple countries. The firm has deep experience with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division's Leniency (Amnesty) Policy, which has been adapted in other countries. Kelley Drye's lawyers conduct internal investigations to determine the facts, and then develop strategies to ameliorate any alleged misconduct or to defend the charges at trial.
- Competition and Intellectual Property – Kelley Drye's antitrust attorneys help businesses aggressively protect their intellectual property, while maximizing the value of their inventions. By combining forces with our litigation and intellectual property practices, Kelley Drye's antitrust attorneys often invoke the antitrust laws in intellectual property litigation. Whether helping clients fend off frivolous antitrust counterclaims, or using the antitrust laws to prevent a rival from using intellectual property rights to drive competitors out of the market, our antitrust attorneys have the experience and knowledge to defend our clients' interests in IP-antitrust disputes.
- Dispute Resolution – Our attorneys provide creative approaches to the resolution of competitive disputes in an efficient, cost-effective manner without resorting to litigation. Through commercial settlements and mediation, arbitration, and summary procedures, where the rules and dynamics are different from those applied in civil courts, we provide alternative mechanisms for resolving competitive issues in a manner that meets both strategic objectives and constrained legal budgets.
Representative Experience
- Represent the maker of in-store advertising and promotional products in litigation alleging exclusive dealing, conspiracy in restraint of trade, monopolization, attempt to monopolize, a horizontal boycott, and false advertising in the in-store advertising and promotion market.
- Litigated and successfully mediated for a Fortune 200 corporation a challenge to the enforceability of a mineral contract valued in excess of $125 million, on antitrust and other grounds.
- Brought two federal lawsuits on behalf of international telecommunications corporation against several major commercial landlords and their principal trade association alleging group boycotts and price fixing.
- Represented prominent technology trade association, and achieved the only amicus status granted by the court, in the remedies phase of the Department of Justice monopolization suit against Microsoft.
- Defended nationwide telecommunications and operator services provider against several federal court challenges to exclusive provider arrangements under the antitrust laws.
- Settled section 1 claims related to domestic active matrix flat panel display markets on behalf of a large electronics company.
- Obtained a defense jury verdict on behalf of a Japanese trading company after a four-month jury trial, in a class action alleging a conspiracy to depress the prices of Alaskan salmon.
- Successfully negotiated a favorable resolution of price-fixing charges against a leading manufacturer of specialty papers, its foreign parent, and certain executives in the first joint sovereign, international criminal antitrust investigation. In related civil class actions, obtained dismissal of foreign parent on jurisdictional grounds, and defeated class certification in two state indirect purchaser cases.
- Represented a major international manufacturer of audio tape in a successful bid to qualify under the Department of Justice's amnesty program, and in related class action litigation.
- Successfully litigated and settled antitrust claims against a Fortune 500 publisher and its subsidiary involving exclusive contracts with magazine publishers in the school fundraising industry.
- Obtained modification of an FTC Consent Order for a leading manufacturer of audio equipment, with regard to resale price maintenance and related promotional programs.
- Obtained first known award of attorneys' fees in New York under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act, after summary dismissal of antitrust claims against a hospital and seven administrators and physicians.
- Defended a major New York City hospital against antitrust class action charges arising out of its alleged participation in a conspiracy to restrict the board certification of emergency medicine practitioners.
- Defeated a government motion for a preliminary injunction blocking, on antitrust grounds, an acquisition by an industrial gas producer.
- Successfully resolved antitrust counterclaims alleging exclusive dealing and conspiracy to restrain trade in domestic truck tire re-treading market on behalf of a tire manufacturer and a car company.
- Successfully settled monopolization and exclusive dealing claims in marine engine markets on behalf of a car company.
