ANTITRUST LITIGATION
Hagens Berman has earned an enviable reputation as experts in this often-confusing, combative area of corporate litigation in which we have recovered billions of dollars in settlements. Our antitrust legal team takes an innovative, efficient approach to antitrust law and tries each case with unmatched determination and skill.
Hagens Berman’s antitrust attorneys work to preserve healthy competition and fair trade in the marketplace by protecting consumers and businesses that purchase goods and services from price-fixing, market allocation agreements, monopolistic schemes and other violations of antitrust law and trade restraints.
Our attorneys have a deep understanding of the legal and economic issues within the marketplace, allowing us to employ groundbreaking market theories that shed light on monopolistic, restrictive and anti-competitive practices in violation of both federal and state antitrust and unfair competition laws.
LEADERS IN ANTITRUST LAW
The firm’s antitrust successes have earned it many awards and accolades, including most recently its 2023 designation as a finalist in The National Law Journal’s Elite Trial Lawyer antitrust category, which it won in 2022 and 2018. Case-specific victories have been highlighted by the American Antitrust Institute, with Hagens Berman receiving awards for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Law Practice in 2022, 2021, 2019 and 2018. Law360 named Hagens Berman’s antitrust team a Practice Group of the Year in 2022 and 2021, and the firm’s lawyers have been recognized as the top in their field individually by The Daily Journal of California, two years running.
Judges have praised the firm’s “…unprecedented success in the antitrust field…” and its “…aggressive and independent advocacy…” in antitrust matters.
A COMPREHENSIVE SCOPE
Hagens Berman currently represents millions of consumers in several high-profile class-action antitrust lawsuits that span many markets, and the firm takes on major antitrust litigation that has the potential to improve market conditions for consumers and businesses nationwide. We have represented plaintiffs in markets as diverse as debit and credit cards services, meat processing, personal computer components, real estate commissions, television screens, electric and gas power, college athlete compensation rights, airlines, personal computer software, videogames and internet services.
In the Keller and O’Bannon cases, the firm represented college athletes against the NCAA and Electronic Arts Inc. claiming the companies illegally use college football and basketball players' names, images and likenesses (NILs) in video games without permission or consent from the player. In those matters, the firm secured a total $60 million in settlements, and checks went out to about 15,000 players, some up to $7,600, with a median around $1,100. The firm continues its work litigating against the NCAA NIL rights and has brought about significant changes already to the NCAA’s policies and procedures regulating payments. In NCAA Grants-in-Aid Scholarships Litigation, the firm brought an antitrust class action against the NCAA on behalf of college athletes, claiming that the NCAA had violated the law when it kept the class from being able to receive compensation provided by schools or conferences for athletic services other than cash. Following a $208 million settlement in the damages portion of the case – an almost 100% recovery of single damages – the Supreme Court upheld the favorable opinion of the Ninth Circuit in a 9-0 ruling regarding injunctive relief.
In the pharmaceutical arena, Hagens Berman represents purchasers of all types in lawsuits alleging that drug companies illegally blocked or delayed generic drugs from coming to market. By keeping generics out of the market, drug companies force purchasers to continue buying their expensive brand-name drugs, lining drug companies' pockets at the expense of those who pay for drugs. Our firm's pharmaceutical antitrust recoveries have returned many hundreds of millions of dollars to purchasers.
A COMPREHENSIVE SCOPE
We are proud of our track record which includes some of the largest recoveries in the nation. As in all practice areas we fight until we have achieved a high percent recovery for our clients.
