Antitrust

If you want to play by today's rules, throw out last year's handbook
The business environment is competitive enough, and when the Obama administration took control competing legally got a whole lot tougher. Your next merger or acquisition will likely be nothing like your last one. The Bush doctrines have been tossed out, creating a seismic shift in antitrust policies and increased scrutiny of proposed mergers and joint ventures.

Across a broad spectrum of industries, questions remain - who is your legitimate competition? When does a reasonable negotiation become exclusionary practice? When does the industry leader become a single-firm monopoly? Antitrust waters are similarly murky for trade associations. When the competition becomes co-opetition, will price-fixing charges follow?

Manatt handles disputes including pricing, monopolization, cartels, collusion, and controversial mergers and acquisitions. Because we have highly knowledgable counsel across many practice areas and trusted relationships with industry and government officials, your case is handled efficiently, thoroughly and with the greatest possibility of success.  

The quickest path to approval is preapproval
Manatt helps structure your major transactions to avoid trouble with regulators. We have the experience and in-depth industry knowledge to seek preapproval at the earliest possible time. Our deep-rooted antitrust compliance strategies meet the requirements of current state acts and the Clayton, Robinson-Patman and Sherman federal antitrust acts. We can expeditiously handle Hart-Scott-Rodino filings and secure regulatory approvals of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures without unnecessary delay or controversy.

Manatt's world-class litigation team strives to help you avoid litigation. We raise red flags and work with you to turn them green. When litigation is in your best interest, we're the ones to have on your side. Members of our antitrust team include a former assistant U.S. attorney, a lawyer previously with the Federal Trade Commission and a former member of the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. If you have to take a case to trial, our world-class trial lawyers can help you obtain the best result. 

Manatt ensures competitive balance and helps the law work for you - not the other way around.

California's Unfair Competition Law
If you're in California, Manatt's antitrust lawyers can provide particular insight into the state's Unfair Competition Law, Business and Professions Code Section 17200 et seq. (UCL). As UCL litigation has increased throughout the past decade, we've successfully represented defendants, plaintiffs and friends of the court. Our lawyers are so well versed in the nearly 70 years of related case law and legislative history that we've helped shape judicial interpretation of the UCL by taking first-impression cases to the courts of appeal and the California Supreme Court.

Select cases

• After a decade of unsuccessful attempts to merge and having dealt with prosecutions filed by the Department of Justice and the state of Florida, a Florida-based hospital system contacted Manatt. Working with the government, Manatt secured early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and within a year handled a merger of two hospital systems without litigation.
• Manatt obtained summary judgment for a multiehospital system in a class action suit claiming that our clients' hospitals throughout Southern California conspired to suppress salaries for nurses. The lawsuit is similar to other cases pending across the United States and was the first one where summary judgment was obtained. 
• Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield, et al.: Manatt successfully defended and obtained summary judgment for both a state and parallel federal consumer class action suit alleging price fixing in the retail and wholesale gasoline market. We ultimately argued the case before the California Supreme Court and won a unanimous decision on groundbreaking issues involving both the standard of review in summary judgments and antitrust law. 
• When a class action antitrust suit was filed against a provider of actuarial data and certain insurers, Manatt was hired to defend the claim. The suit alleged that our client had conspired to underpay construction costs associated with property and casualty claims. We ultimately obtained dismissal on the pleadings of the antitrust claim as a matter of law.
• We secured summary judgment for Dignity Health (formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West) in an exclusive dealing, tying, attempted monopolization and unfair competition case involving provider system contracts with insurance plans.
• We secured summary judgment for Ticketmaster in a sections 1 and 2 and UCL case alleging illegal exclusive dealing and monopolization of the ticketing services market.