Industries: Antitrust & Trade Regulation

Your business uses all available tools and strategies to prevail against intense competition. To stay within the law and stay competitive, you need a firm that can offer you antitrust business counseling and advice on mergers and acquisitions. Should you find your company in antitrust litigation, you’ll need litigators who are firmly focused on your business’s best interests.

McGuireWoods' lawyers bring years of experience on federal, state and international levels in many different facets of antitrust and trade regulation, including both civil and criminal litigation.

Our experience in civil antitrust litigation, at the federal and state levels, includes some of the largest class actions on record, and spans a broad array of industries including paper, petroleum, soft drinks, healthcare, road paving, and vitamins.

Our criminal practice includes defending companies and individuals summoned before federal and state grand juries, and before federal and state courts. We also represent our clients in administrative hearings, including hearings to disbar or to disqualify clients from bidding on federal or state contracts.

Our Antitrust and Trade Regulation group also has represented companies both large and small before federal, state and international enforcement agencies. In addition, our lawyers are well-versed in the FTC’s advertising enforcement policies and the advertising "standards and practices" developed by state and local governmental agencies. We work with the marketing departments of clients and their advertising agencies to preserve the effectiveness of advertising while avoiding the elements most likely to create unnecessary problems.

Representative Work

The following matters reflect the Antitrust Group's capabilities across a range of industries and litigation issues:

  • In re Vitamins Antitrust Litigation
    The firm represented DuPont in numerous class action suits alleging price fixing in the vitamins business. This was the largest private antitrust litigation pending in the U.S. in the early 2000s.
  • In re Commercial Tissue Products Antitrust Litigation
    Representation of Fort James in over 40 civil class action antitrust suits alleging price fixing in the commercial tissue products market. Fort James was one of 8 defendants. The federal "direct purchaser" suits were consolidated into an MDL proceeding in Florida. There also were related state indirect purchaser suits filed in California, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Before these civil cases were filed, the firm represented Fort James' predecessor, James River, in a price fixing investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which was followed by a grand jury investigation. The federal investigation was closed without any enforcement action being taken.
  • American Chiropractic Assn. v. Trigon Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Virginia
    The firm represented Trigon in this antitrust action filed in the Western District of Virginia. The chiropractors alleged that Trigon and medical doctors conspired to provide discriminatory reimbursement to chiropractors. The firm was successful in obtaining summary judgment for Trigon, which was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit.
  • Stand Energy Co., et al. v. Columbia Gas Transmission Corp., et al.
    The firm is representing Dominion Resources in this antitrust conspiracy case filed in the Southern District of West Virginia, which relates to the storage and transportation of natural gas.
  • In re Parcel Tanker Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation
    The firm is representing Jo Tankers, Inc., a major carrier of liquid chemicals in ocean-going vessels in defense of numerous treble damage actions alleging anticompetitive conduct by competitors in the parcel tanker shipping industry.
  • Mad Rhino, et al. v. Best Buy Co., et al.
    The firm is representing Circuit City in this class action case filed in California federal court alleging price discrimination and sales below cost in the sale of CDs.

Business Antitrust Counseling

McGuireWoods' Antitrust and Trade Regulation lawyers have devoted their legal careers to solving the antitrust problems that businessmen and women face daily. However, knowing the limits imposed by antitrust laws and identifying the specific risks to our clients' plans is only the first step. Our lawyers also look for creative and practical ways for our clients to compete effectively with maximum flexibility and acceptable risk. This is the core value we bring to our clients.

McGuireWoods' lawyers serve as business advisors and counselors to domestic and foreign companies, spanning dozens of different industries. In the counseling area, our lawyers:

  • Assist clients in designing marketing and distribution systems that comply with the laws
  • Advise them on a wide variety of pricing and distribution issues
  • Deal with franchising questions and registrations
  • Conduct antitrust audits and compliance programs
  • Write document retention programs
  • Conduct training programs and seminars on antitrust for clients and their employees.
  • Deal with trade regulation issues of the European Economic Community and other international venues
  • Structure joint ventures and strategic alliances
Doing business in a global environment requires specialized and up-to-date knowledge not only of U. S. federal and state antitrust laws, but also of the laws of the European Economic Community and the sometimes unusual laws of smaller countries. The often-conflicting substance and interpretation of these laws can affect companies in unexpected ways, creating not only new challenges but also significant opportunities. At McGuireWoods, we know the law, stay abreast of legal developments and help our clients take advantage of a constantly changing legal environment. Working with key sales and marketing personnel, we gain a clear understanding of their needs. As a result, we can ensure that a company's products, services and natural strengths are used to exploit the opportunities as they arise, and that our legal knowledge and advice supports rather than hinders they way our clients do business.

Antitrust laws are typically needed to balance uneven playing fields and protect the competitive process. In the last five years, for example, we successfully persuaded the Federal Trade Commission to reconsider (and partially dissolve) a completed merger that put a client at risk, and we’ve successfully pursued antitrust and false advertising claims in several industries.

On the defensive end, although we’re well prepared to represent our client, our main goal is to avoid litigation. To do so, our lawyers offer creative training programs and other preventive measures. We prepare antitrust audits, prepare and implement document retention programs and compliance programs needed under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, and provide training programs for employees that not only allow them to recognize and avoid “antitrust sensitive” situations, but also to take advantage of the pro-competitive elements of the antitrust laws.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Sometimes, business growth and expansion depends on the knowledge, expertise and experience of our lawyers to get an acquisition approved by authorities. Our antitrust lawyers have many years of experience in obtaining Hart-Scott-Rodino clearance from the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice for major mergers and acquisitions. We know the people, the process and the policies of the FTC and Justice Department, and we know the complex economic issues that generally lie at the core of any merger or acquisition.

Experience and state of the art technology allow us to handle the largest and most complex "second requests" for documents quickly and easily.