Competition is a powerful force that drives businesses to innovate and improve. But it can also be costly if not handled properly. Antitrust lawyers help companies navigate competition issues and avoid legal trouble. They can assist with merger clearance, cartel investigations and monopolization/abuse of dominance matters across various industries.

They Can Help You Avoid Legal Issues

Every country enforces antitrust laws differently, focusing on companies that may abuse their market power and put consumers at risk. Prosecutors can bring civil or criminal charges, force companies to undergo antitrust reviews before a merger occurs, and prevent companies from engaging in certain abusive practices.

If you’re a business owner, having antitrust lawyers on your side is essential to avoid running afoul of these regulations. Your attorney can help you develop policies that protect your company and educate employees about the dangers of certain behaviors. For instance, your attorney can advise you on conducting meetings with competitors and avoiding discussing pricing or disparaging your products.

Most antitrust cases involve some form of litigation, which can be time-consuming and expensive. You should hire a law firm familiar with this type of litigation, especially if facing a multidistrict or class action case. Attorneys can help you manage the process from start to finish. They are experienced with litigation matters, including antitrust and competition issues, intellectual property rights (such as trademarks and patents), tortuous interference, and other common business disputes. They’ve served as lead or co-lead counsel on many significant antitrust and other complex commercial transactions and have one of the world’s leading antitrust prosecution and defense teams.

They Can Help You Avoid Litigation

Antitrust law is a set of laws that ensures fair competition in the marketplace. It can be a complicated area of law, and companies need an experienced lawyer to protect them from antitrust allegations. Generally, antitrust cases involve a company being accused of violating the Sherman Act, which prohibits certain business activities that are seen as preventing or restraining trade. Various entities, including government agencies or private parties, can bring these claims. If a company is found to have violated the law, it could face severe fines and other penalties.

Attorneys are highly experienced in the full spectrum of business litigation, from arbitration to trial and appeal. They work with clients to tailor our approach to meet their unique needs, including handling complex mergers and acquisitions and other business disputes. In addition to their litigation practice, they have a strong antitrust group and take class action matters for consumers against businesses that violate antitrust. They are also experienced in counseling businesses through investigations and prosecutions by antitrust regulators and competitors.

They Can Help You Avoid Damages

Despite the best efforts of businesses to remain on the right side of antitrust law, sometimes they find themselves in the crosshairs of a federal or state investigation. Such investigations could result in the imposition of massive damages. Specifically, federal law allows winning parties to recover treble damages in antitrust cases, court costs and attorney fees. Moreover, states and the federal government can unite to bring a unified action against a company or individual. Furthermore, some of the top antitrust firms are primarily plaintiff-side practices, litigating class actions against large businesses on behalf of consumers.

An experienced antitrust lawyer can help you avoid these outcomes, even if the government starts a probe. By proactively consulting with an antitrust lawyer, you can create policies that prevent your employees from engaging in illegal behaviors. An effective policy should address all the ways your company could violate antitrust laws, given the products you sell and your standard sales model.

A qualified antitrust lawyer can also assist you in avoiding costly mistakes when preparing for mergers and other transactions. For example, by reviewing all documents associated with the marketing and providing nuanced advice, an antitrust attorney can help you identify any potential problems before they arise. In addition, an antitrust lawyer can assist when preparing for meetings with antitrust enforcement agencies.

They Can Help You Avoid Expenses

The antitrust market is toxic in a way, with big-law antitrust defense lawyers competing with one another not on their ability to give the best advice on how to follow the law but on how they can help their clients break it. It’s a disgrace, not only because the clients get worse advice. Being an antitrust lawyer requires one to be good at interpreting complex legal rules and regulations, be comfortable working with economic experts in certain cases, and have interpersonal skills for large litigation matters involving multiple co-defendants or plaintiffs’ counsel. They must also be able to tolerate risk and the high-stakes poker game inherent in virtually every antitrust case due to the size of the potential litigation exposure or the transformative transaction being challenged by regulators.

Experienced attorneys help businesses navigate the most significant antitrust and competition matters. They are renowned for their ability to obtain clearances, steer strategic mergers and acquisitions through antitrust regulatory investigations, and defend them in criminal and civil antitrust litigation.