Antitrust

Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP has a highly successful and sophisticated antitrust practice counseling clients that face large challenges.  We excel in the defense and prosecution of complex, high-stakes antitrust cases, and the defense of antitrust and competition-related government investigations.  Our practice is both national and international in scope as it spans a broad range of industries.  Among our partners are the former lead trial attorney for the United States in United States v. Microsoft; a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division and the former lead attorney for the United States in United States v. AT&T.

Our partners have been lead trial counsel, or co-lead trial counsel, in some of the most important antitrust cases in history, including:  United States v. Microsoft; United States v. AT&T; United States v. IBM; United States v. Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines; United States v. ADM and RJR Nabisco; In re Vitamins Antitrust Litigation; In re Auction Houses Antitrust Litigation; California Computer Products v. IBM; Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau; and In re Scrap Metal Litigation .

This experience translates into cutting-edge antitrust actions.  Boies, Schiller & Flexner has become a pioneer in plaintiffs' side international price fixing cases when we brought the first antitrust lawsuits against certain Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to fix the prices of Vitamin C and Magnesite sold in the United States. We won several summary judgment motions, each affirmed on appeal, for a company alleged to have violated federal antitrust laws through its retail merchandising and wholesale distribution policies.  Damages sought ranged from $85 million to more than $1 billion.  The Firm also obtained in excess of $4 billion for its client American Express in its lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard; to date, this is the largest recovery ever obtained in an antitrust case.   

Representing the attorney general on behalf of the State of Mississippi, the firm successfully sued Microsoft for overcharging the state and its consumers for computer software.  The case was settled in 2009 for $40 million plus discounts on future purchases of computer hardware and software; this was by far the largest cash settlement Microsoft paid in any of several dozen indirect purchaser actions brought under state antitrust laws.