Antitrust Litigation & Enforcement

Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears has extensive experience representing corporate executives, employees, and entities in criminal antitrust investigations conducted by the Department of Justice and in civil antitrust litigation. Our representations have included clients from the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America and have covered a broad array of substantive areas of antitrust law, including domestic price-fixing and allocation of markets, international cartels and price-fixing, and bid-rigging. We have been involved in investigations into a diverse array of markets and industries, including air cargo services, automotive parts, ocean cargo shipping, foreign exchange banking, security services, vitamin products, LCD panels, and pharmaceuticals. The firm has successfully negotiated numerous non-prosecution agreements for its antitrust clients and has worked with multiple sections of the Antitrust Division and prosecutors from each of the regional offices. We have also represented numerous individuals in connection with the Antitrust Division’s “Leniency Program.”

As a few examples of our antitrust work, the firm represents the Chief Executive Officer of a generic pharmaceutical company in investigations being conducted by the DOJ and State Attorneys General offices across the country, as well as in expansive multi-district civil litigation related to the sale of generic pharmaceutical products. The firm also has represented individuals in investigations involving the Antitrust Division’s recent initiatives on contracting and employment practices, including investigations conducted by the Procurement Collusion Strike Force and matters involving wage-fixing and “anti-poaching” agreements. And in 2018, SOM&S partners David Schertler and Lisa Manning obtained an acquittal for the firm’s client, a London-based currency trader, in a high-profile antitrust trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York involving the euro-to-dollar foreign exchange market. On the civil side, SOM&S partner Chris Mead has represented local businesses in Robinson-Patman Act antitrust cases against Fortune 500 companies that resulted in two successful settlements.

AREAS OF PRACTICE