Arnold & Porter Tops Antitrust Litigation Survey

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1 Portfolio Media, Inc. 648 Broadway, Suite 600 New York, NY Phone: Fax: Arnold & Porter Tops Antitrust Litigation Survey Friday, March 24, Boosted by its high-profile defense of Philip Morris, Wyeth and Visa International, Arnold & Porter has grabbed the top spot as the most sought-after antitrust litigation team among the largest 200 U.S. firms, our survey of federal court dockets shows. The firm s name appeared no less than 62 times on the dockets for antitrust litigation, many of them high-stakes cases with a lot on the line. The runner-up was Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP, which limits its practice to the United States, but still manages a well-know antitrust enterprise. Arnold & Porter's lead was solid. Robins Kaplan trailed the firm by more than 15 cases and the margin between the top two positions was greater than with any of the other firms in the survey. Below are the top firms in our survey of the leading antitrust litigation practices, measured by new cases taken on in 2005: 1. Arnold & Porter: Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi: Jones Day: Hunton & Williams: Gibson, Dunn: Paul, Weiss: Bingham McCutchen: Boies, Schiller & Flexner: Kirkland & Ellis: Morrison & Foerster: O'Melveny & Myers: 22 NOTE: For details on our methodology and instructions on how to obtain the full survey results of the top 50 firms, please consult the bottom of this article. ARNOLD & PORTER With so much competition for the 934 U.S. antitrust cases in 2005, Arnold & Porter was obviously pleased with its ranking and had no trouble highlighting its activities on both sides of the Atlantic. We re delighted that we re ranked so highly. We ve traditionally had a very strong antitrust practice, said Bill Baer, leader of Arnold & Porter s antitrust group who is based in Washington, D.C. All Content Copyright 2006, Portfolio Media, Inc. 1

2 Arnold & Porter s litigation group won a jury verdict for Philip Morris in 2005 involving various antitrust charges. It also won summary judgment in a monopoly case against Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., as well as for pharmaceutical company Wyeth. Wyeth was accused of monopolistic behavior with estrogen therapy product Premarin. The firm has also been retained in the past year by embattled Visa International, which is facing multiple antitrust lawsuits in the United States related to credit cards and debit cards. The firm will act as lead counsel for Visa on a range of matters, according to Baer. Those three victories on the one hand, plus the vote of confidence from Visa, are very significant for Arnold & Porter s litigation side and truly demonstrate our litigation abilities, Baer said. Before rejoining the firm in 2000, Baer was director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition. When I left government in 1999 I had a number of options and after thinking about the tradition of excellence and the breadth & depth at Arnold & Porter, it made the decision easy, Baer said. We also do a lot of cartel work, which begins with government investigations and often leads to follow-on litigation, Baer said, noting that his representation Micron Technology Inc. over computer memory price-fixing charges had led to follow-on civil litigation. ROBINS KAPLAN Runner-up Robins Kaplan has 17 partners on its litigation team, plus 2 of counsel and 10 associates who practice antitrust matters in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Boston offices. We re certainly gratified to be ranked at that level, said K. Craig Wildfang, who heads Robins Kaplan s antitrust group out of the firm s Minneapolis office. The firm has been trying to build its antitrust practice in recent years and this shows that we re succeeding. We ve added lawyers and we ve done a better job of marketing our existing antitrust practice to both current and new clients, Wildfang said. It s a combination of factors. You have to have good clients to start with. It would be nice to be number one, but that s not a specific goal of the firm. We ve been recognized as number one in other practice areas and those kinds of accolades are certainly are appreciated, Wildfang said. Wildfang represented agribusiness plaintiffs in international vitamins antitrust All Content Copyright 2006, Portfolio Media, Inc. 2

3 litigation, which arose out of an alleged decade-long price-fixing cartel of the major international vitamin manufacturers. In June 2005, Robins Kaplan filed an antitrust class lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America and other major banks on behalf of merchants alleging collusive horizontal agreements of credit card fees. The firm attributes some its current success to its historic $6.13 billion settlement on behalf of the U.S. state of Minnesota in its antitrust and consumer fraud litigation in May The same litigation led to a $469 million ruling for Robins Kaplan client Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Robins Kaplan also convinced a jury that drug maker Mylan Pharmaceuticals and others had violated state antitrust laws with its anti-anxiety drug Lorazepam and generic equivalent Ativan. The firm won damages of more than $12 million, with the court now considering post-trial motions to treble the award, according to the firm. JONES DAY Third-place Jones Day boasts a team of 44 competition partners and five of counsel attorneys in 16 offices around the world, including Brussels, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Shanghai and Washington, D.C. Total staff in the group is 130. The practice is chaired by Phillip A. Proger out of Washington, D.C., who focuses on mergers and cartel issues in addition to his litigation work. Jones Day is one of only two law firms to have seen four of its partners lead the section of Antitrust Law of the American Bar Association, including two of the firm s managing partners, Allen C. Holmes and Richard W. Pogue. Jones Day credits its antitrust practice s global prominence with its early move to Europe. The firm began the practice with the creation of a Brussels office in 1986, but said the real growth of its practice in Europe began when it added Bernard Amory in Amory heads up the firms antitrust group in Brussels and has practiced law there since He previously worked as an official in the Directorate General Competition office of the European Commission. Examples of Jones Day s litigation include the coordination of Aventis's worldwide defense of antitrust class actions relating to the vitamins industry, as well as defending R.J. Reynolds Tobacco against antitrust class action suits in the cigarette industry. HUNTON & WILLIAMS All Content Copyright 2006, Portfolio Media, Inc. 3

4 Fourth-ranking Hunton & Williams, which began its antitrust group in 1977, has been expanding significantly. The firm now has 14 partners, three of counsel and 17 associates. During the past year with, the competition group has grown with several high-profile new hires both in the United States and Brussels and will continue to expand in the coming months, the firm said in a statement. The group is led by R. Hewitt Pate, a former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition to Pate, the group s partners include a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General from the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and former officials from the FTC. The firm is lead counsel for Dole in defense of recently-filed national antitrust class action suits alleging price fixing in the bananas market. Dole is one of the primary defendants, along with Chiquita and Fresh Del Monte Produce. Hunton Williams also reached a settlement in a class of more than four million merchants that sued MasterCard and Visa for alleged illegal tying of debit card acceptance to credit card acceptance. GIBSON DUNN Number-five ranked Gibson Dunn has 102 attorneys in its antitrust practice, including 46 partners. They practice in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Denver. The Group is led by six partners, including Robert E. Cooper. Cooper achieved three successive trial victories for a major pharmaceuticals manufacturer in the antibiotics antitrust litigation. He also successfully defended American Airlines in three major antitrust cases. Other partners include Mike Denger, M. Sean Royall, Gary Spratling, Peter Sullivan and Dan Swanson. Gibson Dunn was hired in July 2005 as lead trial counsel for computer maker Intel Corp. in antitrust litigation brought by Advanced Micro Devices. AMD claims Intel unlawfully monopolized the worldwide market for microprocessors through anticompetitive tactics that excluded AMD from the competition and drove up the prices. In addition, Gibson Dunn successfully defended Ticketmaster in an antitrust action brought by Tickets.com, a rival ticketing company that alleged restrained trade. Gibson Dunn was also involved for several years in the vitamin antitrust litigation through its representation of Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. All Content Copyright 2006, Portfolio Media, Inc. 4

5 --By Erik E. Larson, METHODOLOGY Our rankings are based on new antitrust lawsuits filed in 2005, as reflected by U.S. District Court dockets. We surveyed the 200 largest law firms in the United States. The last figure represents the number of new antitrust cases the firm was involved in last year, whether representing the defendant or the plaintiff. Some adjustments have been made to account for re-filed lawsuits and other unusual filings. Each case is weighted equally, regardless of the award sought or the number of attorneys involved. Thus, while our survey reflects the ability of a firm to retain new clients, it does not necessarily reflect the volume of work involved. HOW TO OBTAIN THE SURVEY A copy of the full survey results is available free of charge for subscribers. The PDF document contains a copy of the article and the full ranking of the top 50 firms for To order a copy, please contact our customer service department - by customerservice@portfoliomedia.com - by phone: All Content Copyright 2006, Portfolio Media, Inc. 5

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