Overview
Ropes & Gray’s global antitrust team offers top-flight representation across the full spectrum of antitrust matters. Built around veterans of the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, and including litigators and former prosecutors with deep antitrust experience, our global team has the experience, knowledge, and everyday understanding of business practices to help clients in all areas of antitrust law. Ropes & Gray’s award winning global antitrust practice is regularly ranked among the leading practices by high-profile publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500, Global Competition Review, and U.S. News & World Report.
We litigate complex antitrust cases, including patent-antitrust and price-fixing class actions, in U.S. state and federal courts as well as EU litigations before the UK High Court and the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal. We handle civil and criminal antitrust investigations before antitrust enforcement agencies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We also represent clients on global cartel matters. Our collective experience before antitrust agencies in the U.S., Europe and Asia allows us to provide a seamless service globally and reflects a variety of strategic factors in decision-making.
The firm’s antitrust group has an extensive record of success representing clients clearing transactions before U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies, including in Second Request investigations, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the European Commission and other EU institutions. Our leading HSR practice provides companies with clear guidance on regulatory filing requirements and frequently coordinates merger filings in jurisdictions around the world.
Our antitrust team works seamlessly across industries with our leading corporate and litigation practices offering clients a full range of services including:
Experience
Ropes & Gray’s antitrust attorneys have cleared some of the most notable mergers and acquisitions of the past decade and have successfully represented clients in court and before arbitral panels as well as antitrust agencies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Clients regularly turn to us for antitrust counseling on their most difficult and sensitive issues, with recent successful work that includes:
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Litigation
- Counseling
- Criminal antitrust
Mergers & Acquisitions
- Wright Medical Group on its agreement to be acquired by Stryker Corporation in a transaction with a total enterprise value of approximately $5.4 billion.
- Bain Capital in connection with its consortium acquisition of Toshiba Memory Corporation for approximately $18 billion
- New Mountain Capital in its sale of Equian, a health care payment integrity provider, in a transaction named “Deal of the Year” by Buyouts Insider. The antitrust team led the merger review before DOJ, which closed an investigation without challenging the deal.
- Shire in its $32 billion combination with Baxalta Inc. in the largest rare disease drug combination
- Pfizer in its nearly $14 billion acquisition of Medivation, Inc.
- Emory Healthcare in its strategic partnership with DeKalb Medical in Atlanta, Georgia
- Warburg Pincus and its Dubai-based portfolio company, Network International in its acquisition of Emerging Markets Payments from Actis, creating the largest payments processor in the Middle East and Africa
- Access CIG, LLC in connection with the Department of Justice’s review of Access’ acquisition of Arkive Information Management, Inc.
- Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe as part of a consortium of buyers including TPG Capital and Humana Inc., in its $4 billion acquisition of Kindred Healthcare
Litigation
- Hitachi-LG Data Services in direct and indirect purchaser antitrust class actions alleging price-fixing
- Cablevision in an unlawful tying and monopolization suit in connection with cable set-top boxes
- Charter Communications in connection with the State AG suit to block T-Mobile/Sprint
- Eversource in connection with a class action suit alleging violations of federal and state antitrust and consumer protection laws resulting in $3.6 billion overpayment of electricity costs by New England consumers
- Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings and Polar Air Cargo LLC, in a multi-district antitrust litigation alleging market manipulation and claiming that our clients’ international pricing practices violated U.S., state, and European Union antitrust laws
- Salt Lake Regional Medical Center, Steward Healthcare (successor to IASIS Healthcare) and others in a suit brought by a prominent surgeon arising out of the summary suspension of his medical staff privileges
- Multinational biotechnology company in a suit alleging antitrust claims and common law claims arising out of the termination of a distribution agreement
Counseling
By anticipating antitrust concerns, we are able to preempt issues before they affect crucial operations, counseling clients on their most important business arrangements, as well as interactions with suppliers, customers, and competitors. Companies we counsel include, among others:
- 3i Group PLC
- Altera
- Bain Capital
- Becton Dickinson
- Blackstone
- Cablevision
- General Atlantic
- Genstar Capital
- IASIS Healthcare
- MultiPlan, Inc.
- NYU Langone Medical Center
- Pfizer
- Shire
- The Jackson Laboratory
- TJX Cos.
- TPG Capital
- TravelCLICK
- Trinseo
- Warburg Pincus
- Wright Medical Technology
Awards
- The Best Lawyers in America 2022—Practitioners ranked in Antitrust Law and Litigation - Antitrust
- Chambers USA 2022—Ranked as a leading antitrust firm in Massachusetts and Washington DC
- The Legal 500 US 2021—Ranked as a leading firm in ‘Merger Control’, ‘Cartels’ and ‘Civil Litigation/Class Actions’
- The Legal 500 UK 2021—Noted as a recommended firm in ‘EU and Competition’
- Benchmark Litigation 2021—Ranked as a leading competition/antitrust firm
- Global Competition Review 100 2021—Noted as a recommended firm
- U.S. News & World Report-Best Lawyers Best Law Firms 2021—Recommended as a tier 1 firm in ‘Antitrust Law’
- LMG Life Sciences 2021—Highly Recommended in ‘Competition & Antitrust’
- Chambers Global 2021—Recognized as a leading firm in ‘Competition/Antitrust’
- The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2020—Regarded as a top firm for ‘Antitrust & Competition’
- Who’s Who Legal Competition Thought Leader 2020
