The Antitrust Attorney Blog

The Problem with Conduct Remedies for the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger

April 16, 2014 | Bona Law PC

Antitrust attorneys do everything that a lawyer can do: They litigate in both courts and agencies; they counsel clients; and they participate in mergers & acquisitions. If you are a young lawyer or law student that can’t decide what type of legal activity you like best, try antitrust and competition law—you can do it all.

In the mergers & acquisitions category, antitrust’s most recent obsession is the deal between Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable., Inc.

Competition Policy International (CPI) was kind enough to ask me to write a few words expressing my thoughts, and you can read them here. You can view the other Comcast-TWC articles from the CPI Antitrust Chronicle here.

I won’t go into a lot of detail because you can read the actual article (which is less than five pages), but I thought I’d provide a little introduction into my thinking.

Usually in these circumstances, you will see commentary on one side stating that, of course, the merger should be approved, maybe even “as is.” On the other side, you will read analyses that the world will fall apart if the merger is not blocked forever.

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Update: The Court Denied the Virginia Board of Medicine’s Motion to Dismiss Our Antitrust Case

April 4, 2014 | Bona Law PC

I recently reported on my client’s antitrust case against the Virginia Board of Medicine. I also mentioned that I argued at the motion-to-dismiss hearing on March 28. I am excited to announce that we received the Court’s decision today rejecting the Board’s Motion to Dismiss.

If you are interested in the case, you can download the complaint and motion to dismiss documents below.

1. Amended Complaint

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Will the Supreme Court’s Lexmark Standing Decision Lead Indirect-Purchaser Antitrust Plaintiffs to Federal Court?

April 3, 2014 | Bona Law PC

While waiting for my flight to leave San Diego on my way to Washington, DC for the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, I saw on Twitter—the best source for immediate Supreme Court news—that the Supreme Court had decided Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.

The Supreme Court in that case clarified standing requirements for Lanham Act claims, which create liability for false association and false advertising. The Lanham Act often comes up in legal battles between competitors, as competition often devolves into allegedly false statements about each other’s products or services.

The case is significant for standing in general, but I wonder if it may have some antitrust implications down the road as the lower courts grapple with its broader implications.

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The Virginia Board of Medicine Violated the Antitrust Laws

March 30, 2014 | Bona Law PC

Last week was a big antitrust week for the new law firm of Bona Law PC. First, it was the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, where antitrust lawyers from all over the world descend upon Washington, DC to obsess over antitrust and competition for several days. Second, I was writing an antitrust brief in a significant antitrust case.

Finally, I argued at a motion-to-dismiss hearing in the case Dr. Yvoune Kara Petrie, DC v. Virginia Board of Medicine, et al. I represent Yvoune Petrie, a doctor of chiropractic, in an antitrust lawsuit (Sherman Act, Section 1) against the Virginia Board of Medicine and several of its board members. Update: We survived the motion to dismiss.

With my client’s permission, I thought I’d tell you a little more about it.

As you might recall, I have experience and expertise in antitrust lawsuits against state and local entities, and believe that some of the most pernicious harm to competition comes from government conduct.

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I Love Running My Own Law Firm

March 20, 2014 | Bona Law PC

You may have heard that last week I left DLA Piper to start my own law firm. I am humbled and appreciative of all the support that I have received from many of you. Thank you.

As an antitrust attorney, I analyze markets every day. Even when I’m not working, I do it. I can’t help myself. When I go to the grocery store and stare at a shelf of products, my three-and-a-half-year-old son—who is my grocery-shopping buddy—might think I am carefully determining the best product to buy. (Well, he actually is probably wondering when we are going to come across more food items with cartoons on them).

Instead, I find myself looking at the difference in prices and the placement of companies’ products on the shelf, and thinking about, for example, whether loyalty discounts or category management played a role.

The same compulsion to analyze markets is now occurring in my own market—the market for legal services—now that I am participating in it as an owner rather than an employee. Thus, I thought it would be fun to periodically blog about my experiences moving from biglaw to my own law firm.

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How Should the Antitrust Laws Analyze Loyalty Discounts and Bundled Rebates?

March 17, 2014 | Bona Law PC

In the most recent issue of The Antitrust Law Journal, attorney Sean P. Gates describes several possible approaches to these discounts, analyzing the good and the bad for each. His article, Antitrust by Analogy: Developing Rules for Loyalty Rebates and Bundled Discounts, is really quite good.

I identified this article as a must-read in a previous blog post, and finally had the opportunity to review it over the weekend (Note: I had been busy starting a new law firm, so fell behind on my reading). I am glad that I did. Since most of the country is having winter this year, I won’t point out that I read it on my San Diego outdoor patio while enjoying the whiff of freshly-cut lawn, the sight of palm trees, and the distraction of whether to eat a delicious orange right off the tree. I won’t mention it even though after many years in Minnesota—I put in my cold time—I would feel justified in doing so.

Anyway, I recommend the article generally, but more specifically for the following people: (1) antitrust attorneys that are into exclusionary conduct; (2) non-antitrust attorneys with clients that sell in a distribution network (including to retailers); (3) business people involved in pricing and marketing decisions for their company; and (4) antitrust law students that are looking for a good review of various types of exclusionary conduct.

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I Left BigLaw to Start My Own Law Firm . . . Today

March 10, 2014 | Bona Law PC

I am excited to announce that after a dozen years of big-law practice, I am leaving DLA Piper to start my own law firm—Bona Law PC. I believe that through Bona Law I can offer clients the legal services of the best law firms, but in a much more efficient way. I am headquartered in the San Diego, California area, but expect to continue to practice nationally.

My family, friends, and former co-workers have commented lately that I seem very happy—maybe even giddy. It is true. I am as enthusiastic about the practice of law—and life—as I have ever been. I have a wonderful supportive family and am about to embark on a journey that marries my entrepreneurial spirit with a profession that I love. I feel like I am living the dream.

After years of analyzing other markets for antitrust matters, I finally sat down and analyzed my own. My conclusion is the legal market has structurally changed such that the largest law firms are concentrating more and more on their biggest clients and developing such diseconomies of scale that they are no longer competitive for most businesses. Unless a company can provide these law firms with a minimum volume of work, the firms are unlikely to offer a competitive price for their services.

First, matters with less volume could create conflict issues, which are a significant and costly issue for large law firms. Without sufficient volume, it just isn’t worth it for firms to discount their already high prices.

Second, large law firms have huge fixed overhead—leases, management, marketing departments, etc. Moreover, many (probably most) of them have excess capacity, which means that they are paying a lot of attorneys that aren’t billing as many hours as the firm would like. So volume is a big deal.

This is where I come in.

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What Does the Possible Demise of the Securities Class-Action Lawsuit Mean for Antitrust?

February 28, 2014 | Bona Law PC

On March 5, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the fraud-on-the-market presumption in securities class actions should survive. The case is Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund and it could be groundbreaking. If the Supreme Court jettisons the presumption, it will close a major avenue for securities class-action lawsuits.

Update: The US Supreme Court issued its decision on June 23, 2014.

But what does this mean for antitrust lawsuits? We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, some background: In 1988, the Supreme Court held in Basic v. Levinson that when a shareholder class sues a company under Rule 10b-5 (for misrepresentation, etc.), it need not show that the individual class members relied on the misrepresentations because the stock market is “efficient” and such statements are quickly incorporated into the stock price.

So if you purchased a share of stock after a management official said that the company increased revenue twenty-percent year-over-year even though the manager knew that the revenue numbers were not accurate, you purchased stock that was already inflated from the statements because the market incorporated those statements immediately into the stock price.

Remember the classic book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street? It is all about efficient-market theory. Great book, by the way.

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Congratulations to Team USA Hockey and Especially Warroad, Minnesota

February 16, 2014 | Bona Law PC

Here at The Antitrust Attorney Blog, we like to talk about competition. And what could be a better example of competition than Olympic Hockey. Mostly ignored by all but die-hard fans, hockey—Olympic style—captures the world’s attention every four years, as we all become fans of this exciting sport.

Story lines are everywhere and history unfolds before our eyes, like it did on Saturday when the United States beat Russia in a wild shootout that went on and on. Not surprisingly, the hero from Saturday’s exciting preliminary match, T.J. Oshie, is from a small Northern Minnesota town called Warroad.

As you might recall, even though my family now lives in beautiful Sunny San Diego, we are Minnesota natives. My wife, in fact, has many (and I really mean many) family members that live in Warroad, as well as neighboring town and hockey rival, Roseau, Minnesota.

The two towns are adjacent to the Canadian border, and hockey is kind of a big deal. I have traveled there myself several times. It is a long drive from Minneapolis, best experienced during the warm months. You might be interested to know that two well-run and successful companies also call the area home—Polaris and Marvin Windows.

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Does My Company’s Loyalty-Discount Program Violate Antitrust and Competition Laws?

January 22, 2014 | Bona Law PC

This article is cross-posted in both English and French at Thibault Schrepel’s outstanding competition blog Le Concurrentialiste. Like most antitrust issues today, questions about loyalty discounts are relevant across the globe as competition regimes and courts grapple with the best way to address them.

Companies like to reward their best customers with discounts. It happens everywhere from the local sandwich shop to markets for medical devices, pharmaceutical products, airline tickets, computers, consumer products, and many other products and services.

Customers like loyalty-discount programs (or rebates) because they get more for less. And the reason so many companies offer them is because they are successful.

Everyone wins, right?

Usually. But the program could very well violate antitrust and competition laws in the United States, the European Commission, or other jurisdictions.

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