Antitrust | Capital Markets | Finance | Intellectual Property | Litigation/International Arbitration | Mergers & Acquisitions

Antitrust

Our global Antitrust Group is a full-service practice, offering healthcare companies advice on strategic M&A, multi-jurisdictional pre-merger filings, international cartel and monopoly investigations, private litigation, and regulatory issues. Our Antitrust Group combines broad experience in complex corporate transactions with an experienced litigation practice. The strength and depth of our network of lawyers in Brussels, Paris, Germany, London and the United States gives us the international reach to advise and represent healthcare companies in a variety of U.S. and cross-border transactions. Our team is comprises market-leading practitioners, with vast experience and in-depth knowledge of United States and European competition law issues and enforcement agencies and how they work. We have extensive experience in deal structuring and counseling—whether it be an acquisition of a competitor, a joint venture or complicated licensing issues. Our knowledge and ability to coordinate merger control filings simultaneously in multiple jurisdictions allows our clients to close transactions with minimum delay. Our recent antitrust work has included advising Novartis in transactions such as the sale of its medical nutrition business and the sale of Gerber products before the EU Commission and US Federal Trade Commission. We also represented Sun Pharmaceutical in its acquisition of Taro Pharmaceutical.

In addition to our transactional antitrust work, we have extensive experience representing clients in antitrust litigation matters. We are skilled in handling federal grand jury investigations into price-fixing, market allocation, bid rigging and other criminal allegations in the U.S., and in cartel proceedings before the European Commission and national regulators in Europe. For example, we defended INO Therapeutics in several antitrust counterclaims brought against it in its patent litigation with Sensormedics and Pulmonox.

The breadth of our practice keeps us current on all significant antitrust developments, and our extensive experience before antitrust agencies enables us to advise clients on all major antitrust issues.

Representative Antitrust Transactional Experience

• Barclays Bank on its acquisition of MOS Management Organisation Service/HCD Homecare Deutschland Ltd.
• Gambro on the sale of its renal care business to Da Vita.
• General Atlantic on its acquisition of AMEDES.
• General Healthcare on the acquisition of nine UK hospitals from Nuffield Hospitals.
• Instrumentarium on its acquisition by GE.
• Ivax Corp on its acquisition by Teva, and the acquisition of asthma products distribution businesses from 3M.
• Novartis on the sale of its medical nutrition business to Nestle, the sale of Gerber products to Nestle, the acquisition of Hexal and Eon Labs and its purchase of the medical nutrition business of Bristol Meyer Squibb.
• sanofi-aventis on the transfer of rights in Exubera to Pfizer and the sale of shares in Accovion to Pfizer.
• Sun Pharma on its acquisition of Taro Pharma.

Representative Antitrust Litigation Experience

• aaiPharma v. Kremers Urban Development Corporation—The firm is defending aaiPharma against antitrust claims alleging that aaiPharma has conspired to restrain trade and monopolized the omeprazole market in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and New York Donnelly Act.
• Andrx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. aaiPharma & Dr. Reddy v. aaiPharma—The firm defended aaiPharma against antitrust claims alleging that aaiPharma conspired to restrain trade in the omeprazole market in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and unfair competition laws.
• Bacon Normandie v. Merck & Co., Inc.—The firm represented Merck & Co., Inc. in a Section 7 case challenging Merck’s acquisition of Medco Containment Services, Inc.
• Columbia Healthcare v. Columbia HCA—The firm successfully represented Columbia HCA in a lawsuit brought by a class of small home health care providers for allegedly leveraging its hospital business into entry into the home health market.
• Eon Laboratories, Inc. v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.—The firm won a dismissal of monopolization, price-fixing and conspiracy claims against Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• In re Brand Name Prescription Drug Antitrust Litigation—The firm is defending Merck & Co., Inc. and Medco Containment Services, Inc. in a national class action alleging price-fixing.
• In re Buspirone Antitrust Litigation—The firm represented Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in an antitrust action against Bristol-Myers Squibb for illegally monopolizing the buspirone drug market by obtaining and enforcing a sham patent and making fraudulent statements to the FDA in order to forestall competition from generic manufacturers.
• In re Cipro—The firm defended The Rugby Group, Inc. in a multi-district antitrust class action alleging that the settlement of patent litigation concerning the antibiotic ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (Cipro) unreasonably restrained trade in violation of the antitrust laws.
• INO Therapeutics v. Sensormedics—The firm represented INO Pharmaceuticals against antitrust claims alleging that INO monopolized the market of nitric oxide gas by tying products, false statements to the marketplace and filing a baseless patent infringement lawsuit in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
• Mylan Pharmaceuticals v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Procter & Gamble—The firm is defending Watson Pharmaceuticals against Cartwright Act and unfair competition claims alleging that Watson and Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals engaged in predatory pricing of a generic version of P&GP’s antibiotic, Macrobid, in violation of California state law and engaged in predatory pricing. This case is on the cutting edge of defining the interface between branded and generic pharmaceuticals, which in turn is a central issue in the cost of prescription drugs to the public.