Antitrust & Competition

Transactional (Merger Control) 

• Representing Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. in obtaining Department of Justice approval for its proposed $10.6 billion acquisition of 21 Fox Regional Sports Networks from the Walt Disney Company.

• Representing French media entrepreneur and art collector Patrick Drahi in securing antitrust clearance for the acquisition of global auction house Sotheby’s.

• Representing Zoetis in securing antitrust clearance for its proposed acquisition of Platinum Performance, a nutrition focused animal health business.

• Representing Cartamundi in securing clearance for its proposed acquisition of United States Playing Card Company, manufacturer of the Bicycle brand of playing cards.

• Representing Republic Airlines in securing antitrust clearance for its proposed Chapter 11 reorganization, which involved the acquisition of a majority interest in Republic by its three code share partners, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines.

• Successfully represented Unimin Corporation in its $3 billion merger with Fairmount Santrol to create Covia Holdings Corporation, the leading producer of frac sand and industrial sand in the United States. The parties pulled their initial Hart-Scott-Rodino filing and refiled it to give the Department of Justice additional time to review the transaction, and the Department allowed the deal to close without issuing a second request.

• Representing MediaNews Group Digital First Media when it won court approval to buy bankrupt newspaper publisher Freedom Communications after the government blocked a sale to the higher-bidding Tribune Publishing in a bankruptcy auction.  

• Representing an Indian generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, Claris Ltd., in seeking FTC clearance for its pending $625 million acquisition by Baxter International.

• Representing Brambles in securing antitrust clearance in the U.S., EU, and Australia for the combination of its energy container businesses with U.S.-based Hoover Container Solutions in a joint venture that will be the world's second-largest provider of energy and chemicals storage units.

• Representing Merck in securing antitrust clearance for its $3.8 billion acquisition of Idenix Pharmaceuticals.

• Representing Sinclair Broadcast Group in securing antitrust clearance from the Justice Department for several recent acquisitions, including its $965 million acquisition of 7 television stations from Allbritton Communications.

• Representing ONEOK in its $800 million acquisition from Chevron of two natural gas liquids pipelines transporting NGLs from the Permian Basin to Mont Belvieu, Texas.

Cartel Defense

• Representing a leading Japanese manufacturer of ceramic substrates for automotive catalytic converters in negotiating a guilty plea in a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal grand jury investigation of price fixing and bid rigging with one of the largest downward departures ever.

• Representing a high-level executive of a Japanese capacitor manufacturer in a DOJ cartel investigation and obtaining a non-prosecution agreement for him.

• Representing a U.S. pharmaceutical company facing a DOJ antitrust cartel investigation in the generic pharmaceutical industry.

• Leading the defense of a multinational financial services company facing a cartel investigation by the DOJ, European Commission and other regulators.

Government Civil Investigations and Private Antitrust Litigation

• Representing a director of United Airlines in In re Domestic Airline Travel Antitrust Litigation, a class action alleging that the major U.S. airlines conspired with each other to limit capacity.

• Representing Portigon and WestdeutschImmobilien Bank in LIBOR-based financial instruments antitrust litigation where the defendants allegedly colluded to manipulate the U.S. Dollar LIBOR rate, influencing prices in the markets for LIBOR-based instruments.

• Successfully defending MediaNews Group Digital First Media in a private antitrust lawsuit challenging the restructuring of a newspaper joint operating agreement in Salt Lake City and representing the company in a related Justice Department civil investigation.

• Representing Cantor Fitzgerald in more than 40 putative class action lawsuits filed against all 22 primary dealers alleging a conspiracy to manipulate the $12.7 trillion U.S. Treasury market.

• Representing Macquarie in two civil class actions alleging global banks manipulated various financial benchmark rates: the Singapore Offered Rate (SIBOR) and the Singapore Swap Offer Rate (SOR), and the Australian Bank Bill Swap Reference Rate (BBSW).