Lowenstein Sandler

Antitrust / Competition’s home base within the firm Lowenstein Sandler takes pride in their expansive knowledge and extensive experience handling the full range of antitrust regulation challenges facing businesses in today’s highly competitive and changing landscape.

The group regularly represents clients in all types of antitrust matters—criminal investigations and private actions that typically follow—class-action antitrust lawsuits, actions brought by customers and suppliers, actions by or against competitors, and monopolization cases. Its lawyers have significant experience litigating the full range of antitrust claims, including price-fixing, bid-rigging, vertical restraints, and price discrimination, on both the plaintiff and the defense sides.

Corporate clients seek counsel from Lowenstein’s Antitrust group on the competitive and antitrust regulatory effects of corporate transactions. The lawyers analyze the potential competitive impact of these proposed transactions and help the parties to proposed transactions navigate through the regulatory clearance processes and merger-related inquiries by U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies. The team also has industry-leading experience in the often-difficult analysis required for preparing and filing Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (HSR Act) notifications with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice and frequently counsels companies on the application of the HSR Act and compliance with its provisions.

“While we are capable of litigating and trying even the most complex antitrust cases, we recognize that our role is to serve our client’s business strategies and goals and that a quickly resolution can be—and often is—the best option,” says Lowenstein Antitrust/Competition Partner Zarema A. Jaramillo, who also serves as managing partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C.office. She continues: “At the outset of each consultation, we help the client assess the likely value of the matter. Then, based on that calculation, we determine the best strategy to effectively and efficiently resolve the issues involved. Some matters are ‘bet the company’ situations and justify large expenditures of time and money, but others are not; it is always in our client’s best interest to make that determination upfront and to proceed accordingly.”

Partner Jonathan L. Lewis adds: “We immerse ourselves in our client’s businesses and industries to better understand our client’s goals, operations, market positions, and competition. Then, we help tailor their business strategies and conduct so that they will be in compliance with competition law and policy.” Such counsel covers the antitrust implications of a wide range of business practices, including distribution policies and programs, pricing policies, trade associations, information exchanges, and other issues that regularly impact companies with large market shares.

“We collaborate closely with our clients’ compliance officers to ensure both adherence to the law, and the operational freedom to compete hard and succeed,” says Lewis. The team has designed and executed corporate antitrust compliance programs, including awareness presentations, antitrust training for sales forces and for C-suite officers; and full antitrust audits for corporations and organizations across a wide variety of industries, including consumer products, health care, energy/electricity/gas, electronics, chemicals, broadcasting, and paper products.