The Antitrust Practice Group at Ropes & Gray approaches clients' needs with extensive regulatory knowledge, business understanding of company practices and variations, negotiation experience, litigation skills, transactional expertise, and sound legal judgment. This combination of strengths enables us to provide our clients with successful, cost effective representation.

Our lawyers represent a broad range of national and regional clients, including individuals, trade and professional associations and corporations, in all aspects of antitrust and competition law counseling and litigation.  Our practice is grounded in the traditional areas of competition law – mergers, price fixing, distribution and licensing – and extends its frontiers to high technology, life sciences, sports, communications and health care.

Ropes & Gray enjoys a national reputation for effective advocacy in complex antitrust and competition law. We have successfully guided numerous clients through the U.S. pre-merger process with federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies and applicable foreign merger review processes, negotiating resolutions if necessary.  Our lawyers are involved, at the trial and appellate level, in state and federal antitrust, business tort, and unfair state law competition cases, and in business negotiations to resolve issues before the litigation process begins.  We also defend clients and represent third-parties in investigations and prosecutions brought by state attorneys general, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, including investigations and claims of unfair trade practices brought under the FTC Act and "baby" state FTC Acts, such as Massachusetts Gen. L. Chapter 93A, New York's Donnelly Act, and California's Cartwright Act, Unfair Competition Act, and Unfair Practices Act.

Who We Are

The Antitrust Group at Ropes & Gray consists of a variety of antitrust experts in both our Boston and Washington, D.C. offices.  Among our experts are:

• A former general counsel to the FTC;
• A former in-house antitrust counsel for a global Fortune 50 company;
• A former trial attorney for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice;
• A former Assistant Solicitor General; and
• The former general counsel of the Antitrust Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee who participated in the original drafting of the Hart-Scott-Rodino statutory and regulatory scheme. 

Other transactional lawyers and litigators with significant antitrust expertise assist in various aspects of our antitrust practice.

Practice Focus Areas

U.S. and Global Merger Review
We have successfully guided numerous clients through the U.S. pre-merger process with federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies and applicable foreign merger review processes, negotiating resolutions if necessary.  Ropes & Gray's Antitrust Group is extremely knowledgeable about the complex regulatory environment created by the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Premerger Notification Act.   We have advised hundreds of clients on the applicability of the HSR Act and, if necessary, the procedures for compliance.  

We have guided numerous clients through the  review processes known as the "quick look"¨ and the "second request" so that they can proceed with their transaction efficiently and promptly.  We are prepared to advocate, litigate, and negotiate with the merger review agencies, if necessary, to ensure that our clients¡¦ transactions are allowed to close.  In addition to representing our clients in the U.S. review process, we have substantial expertise in the growing area of global merger review in foreign jurisdictions, including the European Union.

Competition and Antitrust Counseling
Of course, the ideal way to deal with antitrust and competition problems is to identify them early and work to prevent or resolve them. We work closely with our clients and transactional lawyers in our Corporate Practice to anticipate and address antitrust concerns that arise in the context of joint ventures, licensing and cross-licensing agreements and other contractual and transactional strategies and devices.  We also work with clients to develop workable solutions to competitive problems arising in the distribution chain that involve upstream suppliers, downstream distributors and customers, exclusive dealing agreements, "most favored nation" clauses, pricing policies and price discrimination issues, and other distribution and sales related issues.  We bring our experience as counselors, negotiators, and advocates to bear when resolving client problems.

Government Enforcement
Clients in any field face the prospect of increased government enforcement of antitrust and competition laws by federal and state agencies.  Federal and state agencies are increasingly using subpoenas, civil investigative demands, and voluntary requests for compliance to aid in their investigations and enforcement activities. We represent not only clients who are the targets of investigations, but also clients who are non-targeted industry members, competitors, or customers in investigations and claims of unfair trade practices brought under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, Federal Trade Commission Act as well as the "baby" state FTC Acts, such as Massachusetts Gen. L. Chapter 93A, New York's Donnelly Act, and California's Cartwright Act, Unfair Competition Act, and Unfair Practices Act.   We assist clients in maximizing results or minimizing the burdens of compliance by negotiating and advocating with the investigating agencies.

Public and Private Litigation
In situations where negotiating is impractical or unlikely, our litigators successfully defend and bring claims under applicable competition law.  In terms of responding to government enforcement actions, we have significant expertise in defending actions brought under the Sherman and FTC Acts as well as cases arising under state competition law and "baby FTC" act litigation in a number of states.  We have also prosecuted and defended private actions at both the state and federal level and have considerable experience in multi-district and complex litigation.  Together with our extensive litigation and trial skills honed in state and federal court and before the Federal Trade Commission, our antitrust expertise allows us to master complex competition law cases promptly and cost-effectively and we have a significant history of producing favorable results for our clients.

Intellectual Property
In recent years, courts and agencies have focused on the interplay between antitrust issues (competitive freedom) and intellectual property rights (the ability to exclude others).   The increasing number of high technology and intellectual property-based businesses have brought these tensions to the forefront of antitrust practice and have become important factors that require careful consideration in the context of mergers, acquisitions, licensing arrangements, joint ventures and joint research and development efforts. 

In addition, federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies as well as private plaintiffs have taken a much more aggressive position with respect to the scope and exploitation of intellectual property rights owned by companies in the technology, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device sectors of the economy.  Ropes & Gray's Antitrust Group works collaboratively with the Life Sciences and Intellectual Property Groups to develop strategies to help clients secure intellectual property protection for their innovations and defend them against antitrust challenges.

Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences
Few areas have drawn as much attention from federal and state antitrust enforcement officials or private antitrust plaintiffs as the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors.  The competitive potential of emerging technologies have become a critical element in assessing the potential anticompetitive effects of mergers, acquisition, joint ventures and licensing agreements in these sectors.  Substantial attention has also been focused on those features of the federal regulatory structure administered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and on the rights of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device manufacturers to companies to avail themselves of that regulatory structure. 

Attention has also focused on the acquisition and licensing of intellectual property and the prosecution and settlement of intellectual property disputes in this sector.  Ropes & Gray's Antitrust and Life Sciences Groups along with the Intellectual Property Group work together to develop comprehensive strategies to help clients secure intellectual property protection, obtain the necessary federal regulatory approvals and anticipate and defend against any attendant regulatory, intellectual property and antitrust challenges.  Ropes & Gray is one of a select number of legal service providers having the range of competencies and experiences that permit us to provide these comprehensive services.

Trade and Professional Association Counseling
Trade and professional associations provide a useful forum for industry and professional participants to pursue common business objectives for the benefit of both the business or profession as well as customers and consumers. Because trade and professional associations typically involve collective meetings and activities by competitors, government enforcement officials often view associations as a spawning ground for anticompetitive agreements, such as agreements regarding price, allocation of customers or territories, collusive standard setting and boycotts. 

Ropes & Gray's Antitrust Group advises and counsels trade and professional associations as well as clients with employees participating in these associations on how best to avoid questionable conduct and procedures and yet still obtain the desired benefits We have helped establish trade and professional associations and draft polices and procedures to avoid potentially questionable conduct. 

Legislation and Regulatory Policy
Antitrust and competition issues lie at the heart of many of significant policy issues facing federal and state governments. Debates and discussions on such diverse topics as trade, technology, pharmaceuticals, health care and defense routinely involve questions of antitrust and competition policy.  Well-meaning legislation and regulatory initiatives designed to foster competition often work in ways that discourage innovation and investment and create disincentives to companies inclined to take risks and develop new and innovative products. 

Ropes & Gray's Antitrust Group works closely with clients to anticipate and resolve antitrust issues arising in legislative and regulatory discussions before they are enacted into law.  Our legislative team regularly works with clients to assess the potential of various legislative and regulatory initiatives, identify those officials who can positively affect the outcome and develop strategies, prepare briefing materials and, where necessary, draft language to protect our clients' interests.

How We Help Our Clients

• We have successfully guided several high technology companies through the merger review process, responding to and fending off investigations by the FTC or the DOJ merger review authorities resulting in consummated transactions without any divestiture or other penalties.
• We have responded to and negotiated resolutions of investigations by state antitrust authorities in Massachusetts and throughout the New England states in the context of many mergers and acquisitions in various industries, including healthcare-related fields.
• We obtained a judgment on behalf of a major computer manufacturer after a trial on damages in an action challenging operating system software standard activities under federal and state antitrust and unfair competition laws.
• We have assisted clients in various industries in reducing the antitrust risk associated with joint ventures with competitors and other information-sharing activities.
• We have favorably resolved and/or litigated many disputes on behalf of Ben & Jerry's, including proving that a competitor had unlawfully attempted to monopolize the market, and defending against antitrust and unfair competition claims brought by distributors and other industry participants.
• We are currently defending several major pharmaceutical companies in multiple actions against claims of unfair competition in connection with the sale of pharmaceuticals and claims of unfair competition in connection with the settlement of patent litigation.
• We have assisted pharmaceutical clients in legislative and regulatory proceedings and successfully proposed, drafted and obtained substantial revisions to federal legislation which would have made it substantially more difficult for pharmaceutical companies to settle patent disputes with generic pharmaceutical companies. 

Contact

For further information on this area of practice, please contact:

• Cary Armistead
• Howard Fuguet
• Mit Spears

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