PRACTICE AREAS
« View All Practice AreasAntitrust / Competition
As our Supreme Court has said, antitrust laws are as important to the preservation of economic freedom and our free-enterprise system as the Bill of Rights is to the protection of our fundamental freedoms. U.S. v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U.S. 596, 610 (1972). Unfortunately, there are times when individuals or businesses distort the goals of competition to gain undue or unfair advantage over others. This type of conduct can take the form of illegally-maintained monopolies, price fixing, the exchange of competitive information, patent abuse, and other forms of unfair competition.
Led by Chairman Michael D. Hausfeld, referred to by The New York Times as one of the nation’s “most prominent antitrust lawyers,” Hausfeld LLP is a widely considered global leader in the fight against these types of wrongdoing, bringing a wide variety of class action cases to the state and federal courts in the United States and pursuing its clients' worldwide claims through private settlement negotiations or litigation outside the United States.
Hausfeld LLP lawyers have a consistent track record of:
• Leading or participating in the world’s most significant plaintiffs’ private antitrust enforcement actions;
• Leading the policy debate in favor of greater private enforcement of the competiton laws in the US, Europe and globally through innovative and practical solutions; and
• Building a talented team of professionals representing one of the largest plaintiffs’ private antitrust enforcement teams in the US and the largest dedicated plaintiffs’ team in the UK and Europe.
Hausfeld LLP lawyers believe that, with the increasing incidence of global cartels and coordinated international enforcement of competition and antitrust laws, it is well positioned to provide unparalleled advice and the highest quality professional representation for claimants internationally. This is increasingly recognized by the leading defense firms both publicly and in private as they seek to achieve global “peace” for their cartel clients.
Cases and Current Investigations
» Aftermarket Automotive Lighting
» Air Cargo
» Air Passenger
» Alaskan Shipping
» Auction Rate Securities (ARS)
» Blood Reagents
» Chocolate
» Compressors
» CRTs
» Eggs
» Endo (Trocars)
» Flash
» Flat Glass (II)/Construction Glass
» In re Food Service Equipment Hardware Antitrust Litigation
» Korean Air
» Labelstock
» LCDs
» Marine Hose
» Municipal Derivatives
» NCAA
» Optical Disc Drives
» Paraffin Wax
» Parcel Tankers
» Publication Paper
» Rail Freight
» Taq
» Tomatoes
» Transpacific
» Vitamin C
» Vitamins
Successes
- Hausfeld LLP recently announced a groundbreaking global settlement agreement with Parker ITR regarding its involvement in the marine hose cartel. The settlement allows any purchaser of marine hose from Parker ITR anywhere in the world, other than direct purchasers of marine hose in US commerce, to claim compensation in respect of losses arising from the cartel, irrespective of where they reside or where the marine hose was purchased. This represents the first time a commercial, non court-based agreement of this type has been reached in respect of a global cartel, and it provides an entirely new model for global cartel settlements going forward. See www.marinehoseclaims.com.
- Due to the work of Hausfeld LLP lawyers, their former firm was listed in the “mass tort and class actions” section of the 2008 edition of the US Legal 500 publication as one of the top antitrust plaintiffs’ firm in the US. Legal 500 commented that: “The ‘outstanding’ Mike Hausfeld, in Washington, DC, is a titan of the antitrust bar and a ‘very creative’ advocate who is the architect behind the firm’s expansion into Europe and leads the team in the municipal derivatives case.” In particular, Legal 500 noted that Hausfeld LLP’s London office (formerly with the prior firm), “has not been idle; this year the firm’s offices on both sides of the Atlantic worked on the price-fixing scandal between BA and Virgin Atlantic, and achieved a ground-breaking $200m settlement in the first-ever transatlantic recovery.”
- Hausfeld LLP is serving as Lead Counsel having special responsibility for non-US claims in the Air Cargo Antitrust Litigation on behalf of air freight customers against a group of international flagship airlines for fixing prices on air freight shipping. This case has already resulted in a landmark $85 million settlement with Lufthansa. The settlement will result in thousands of European businesses recovering damages for infringements of both US antitrust and EU competition law. Michael Hausfeld was the architect and lead settlement negotiator for the claimants. Furthermore, Hauseld LLP's London arm Hausfeld & Co. LLP is pursuing claims on behalf of non-US purchasers in London against British Airways.
- Hausfeld LLP is serving as Co-Lead Counsel in the Air Passenger Antitrust Litigation on behalf of thousands of air travellers around the world against British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways for fixing prices of air passenger transportation to and from the UK to all long-haul destinations in the world. Hausfeld LLP lawyers secured the first recovery for foreign citizens based on foreign antitrust law in a US antitrust case. European citizens and businesses will be significant beneficiaries of this settlement that provides equal compensation for both domestic and foreign air passengers.
- In 2007, Legal 500 commented that Hausfeld LLP's former firm is “[a]dmired and envied in equal measure . . . [as they] cut[] a formidable figure in the antitrust litigation arena and has set the bar for plaintiffs’ firms around the country.”
- On February 14, 2007, due in large part to the work of Hausfeld LLP attorneys, Competition Law 360 recorded their former firm as the most in-demand plaintiffs’ antitrust practice last year according to its survey of the 300 largest firms in the US. CMHT was ranked on the basis of the number of new cases in which it acted in 2006. It took on 96 new cases, while its nearest competitor took on 34 new cases. Competition Law 360 stated that their former firm’s success “was likely due in no small part to [its] broad net, with the firm dipping its toes into many of the hottest litigation areas.” Many of these cases are now being litigated by Hausfeld LLP.
- Michael Hausfeld was the only US plaintiff’s lawyer expressly invited by the European Commission’s DG Competition to comment on its EC Antitrust Damages Actions Green Paper of March 28, 2006 and he responded to the OFT’s White Paper on private damages actions for competition law infringement. Michael Hausfeld was also invited to speak at the OFT’s consultation meeting on September 24, 2007.
- On July 10, 2007, in the case of Diamond Chemical Company, Inc. v. Akzo Nobel Chemicals B.V. et al., a U.S. federal judge in Washington, DC granted the motion by Hausfeld LLP lawyers to award $5.1 million in undistributed settlement funds to The George Washington University Law School to endow a Center for Competition Law. The cy pres award resulted from a successful antitrust lawsuit brought by Hausfeld LLP lawyers on behalf of a plaintiff class harmed by an international anticompetitive conspiracy to fix prices for the sale of sodium monochloroacetate and monochloroacetic acid in the United States and elsewhere. This is a novel resolution in the face of increasing global trade as ill-gotten cartel profits will be used to study and recommend improvements to global private anti-cartel enforcement.
- Michael Hausfeld was the only plaintiff’s lawyer to appear before the European Commission in 2002 on behalf of European consumers in the Microsoft matter.
- Hausfeld LLP lawyers successfully litigated and settled foreign claims in the case of Kruman v. Christie’s International PLC. et al., marking the first time that non-US claimants as a class received compensation for violation of competition laws (the fixing of auction commissions) – a milestone in both US antitrust jurisprudence and European recovery.
- In the landmark case of Empagran v. F. Hoffman LaRoche, Inc., et al., Hausfeld LLP lawyers represented foreign purchasers in U.S. federal court to recover the billions of dollars in overcharges that resulted from a global conspiracy to fix vitamin prices and allocate market share. This case was litigated by Hausfeld LLP lawyers all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which delivered a ground breaking judgment on US Sherman Act jurisdiction. The scope of the jurisdiction was defined and confirmed that intertwined US and non-US claims against worldwide cartels may continue to be brought in the US courts. This case was designated as the “Matter of the Year” by the Global Competition Review.
