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Practice Areas :
Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Trade Regulation
Patton Boggs provides an extensive range of antitrust counseling, litigation, and policy services to clients with complex antitrust concerns. Our practitioners are experienced in all legal, regulatory, and economic aspects of business competition in the marketplace and counsel participants in every key industrial sector, including energy, telecommunications, financial services, health care, transportation, agri-business, high technology, and intellectual property.
The firm’s antitrust professionals have a full range of capabilities in antitrust litigation, guidance through mergers and acquisitions, the formulation of competition policy and legislation, and counseling of corporations and trade associations on the myriad of antitrust issues that arise in the business world.
Our antitrust attorneys represent parties in private federal and state court antitrust litigation and before the principal antitrust enforcement agencies – the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission.
On behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants, we represent clients in civil and criminal antitrust investigations and adversary proceedings, as well as in major litigation involving the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Robinson-Patman Act. The wide spectrum of matters we handle cover issues such as alleged price-fixing arrangements, market allocation schemes, predatory pricing, monopolization, unfair competition, transfer pricing issues, and consumer protection. Our experience on the appellate level includes advocacy in several landmark antitrust cases before the United States Supreme Court.
In addition, Patton Boggs advises parties on all aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including pre-merger notifications under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, securing regulatory clearance after Second Requests, and third-party opposition and defense of proposed transactions on competition policy grounds. The firm also counsels clients on matters related to joint ventures and competitor collaborations, Noerr-Pennington immunity, and trade association and standard-setting activities.
The firm’s Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Trade Regulation Practice Group is bolstered by a senior economist and an attorney-economist, who provide in-house, technical economic guidance in analyzing antitrust and competition issues. In addition, members of the group are widely published in academic and professional publications, are frequently quoted in the business press, and are regularly invited to speak on competition issues at bar association and professional society meetings, industry conferences, and educational seminars.
The antitrust practitioners at Patton Boggs have successfully represented clients in diverse contexts, including:
- Litigating antitrust cases on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants in federal district and appellate courts.
- Defending investigations conducted by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, including a substantial practice representing clients in investigations conducted by DOJ’s National Criminal Enforcement Section.
- Defending and opposing mergers and acquisitions on behalf of multinational corporations before the FTC, the DOJ, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and other agencies of the federal government and the European Union.
- Representing multinational corporations and trade associations on antitrust and competition issues arising in the health care sector – including Medicare reform – before the FTC, Congress, and federal agencies.
- Representing high-technology companies on competition and antitrust issues, including matters arising in connection with intellectual property.
- Providing antitrust compliance seminars and antitrust audits to numerous companies, of all sizes, in regulated and non-regulated industries.
- Providing internal investigations and compliance audits on antitrust matters.
- Representing major companies in antitrust rulemaking proceedings before the FTC and other agencies.
- Defending companies that have been issued Civil Investigative Demands by the Antitrust Division of the DOJ.
- Representing individuals and companies in other civil and criminal antitrust investigations before the DOJ.
- Counseling companies on antitrust and competition policy issues before the U.S. Congress.
- Representing wholesalers and distributors on Robinson-Patman Act issues.
- Representing companies in antitrust class action litigation.
Our antitrust team includes a former Co-Chairman of the Energy Committee of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, the current Vice-Chairman of the President’s Antitrust Modernization Commission, former antitrust litigators for the U.S. Government, and highly regarded authorities in international antitrust and competition law and policy.
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