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Private Antitrust Litigation

Global Antitrust Litigation Practice. Recognized and retained by some of the largest corporations in the world, Shearman & Sterling’s antitrust litigators navigate clients successfully through any antitrust issue at any stage of litigation. We have litigated in US federal and state courts, the European Court of Justice, national courts in EU Member States and arbitration tribunals.

Shearman & Sterling has vast experience in defending clients in multidistrict treble damage class actions in the US. Our established European practice has broad experience litigating competition cases before the national courts in private actions and appeals against decisions by national regulators.

Delivering Results for Clients. Our antitrust litigators have helped clients avoid a full trial by successfully opposing class certification, moving for summary judgment, securing dismissal under the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act, and moving to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and for insufficient pleading. Nonetheless, when a case does proceed to trial, our seasoned trial lawyers have extensive experience litigating a wide variety of civil antitrust issues, including allegations of:

• Price-fixing conspiracies
• Exclusive dealing, tying and bundling
• Monopolization
• Price discrimination
• Market allocation

Illustrative Recent Experience

US Antitrust Litigation Representations:

• Barclays Bank in multidistrict merchant class actions alleging that Visa, MasterCard and credit card issuing banks conspired to fix interchange fees and illegally bundled several separate and distinct services within interchange fees
• Covidien in a federal class action lawsuit alleging that Covidien had monopolized and engaged in anticompetitive exclusionary conduct in the market for medical sharps containers in the United States. In January 2010, after 13 days of jury trial in the District Court of Massachusetts, the case settled on extremely favorable terms for our client
• Cargolux in a pending civil action alleging that Cargolux and other airlines entered into a global conspiracy to fix the rates and surcharges on air cargo services
• Syngenta in its successful challenge to Monsanto’s dominance in biotechnology seed markets
• Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, Inc. for which Shearman & Sterling obtained the dismissal from class action litigation asserting bid rigging and market allocation among leading private equity firms in leveraged buyouts
• BARBRI in consumer class actions alleging that BARBRI conspired with Kaplan, the nation’s leading LSAT preparation course provider, to stay out of each other’s markets, and engaged in exclusionary conduct
• BASF, the world’s second largest producer of vitamins, in numerous antitrust cases alleging that BASF and other vitamin producers engaged in agreements to fix prices and allocate markets for vitamin products

European Antitrust Litigation Representations:

• AREVA in relation to the £250 millon damages action brought by National Grid in the English High Court based on the European Commission’s gas insulated switchgear cartel decision (the largest ever UK damages action brought for breach of antitrust rules)
• Bacardi-Martini in its proceedings before European Court of Justice challenging a French law
• The Bavarian Lager Company in its appeal to the European Court of Justice regarding access to European Commission internal documents, which will be the leading case on freedom of information versus data protection rules
• Wal-Mart in its successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Germany against allegations of predatory pricing

View additional private antitrust litigation experience

View cartels & government investigations experience