Antitrust

Robbins Geller’s antitrust practice focuses on representing businesses and individuals who have been the victims of price-fixing, unlawful monopolization, market allocation, tying, and other anti-competitive conduct.  The Firm has litigated many of the largest federal and state antitrust cases in the United States, resulting in notable victories against companies such as Microsoft. 

The Firm’s antitrust cases include:

• In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litig., No. 1:05-md-01720 (E.D.N.Y.). Robbins Geller attorneys, serving as co-lead counsel on behalf of merchants, obtained a settlement amount of $5.54 billion. In approving the settlement, the court noted that Robbins Geller and co-counsel “demonstrated the utmost professionalism despite the demands of the extreme perseverance that this case has required, litigating on behalf of a class of over 12 million for over fourteen years, across a changing legal landscape, significant motion practice, and appeal and remand. Class counsel’s pedigree and efforts alone speak to the quality of their representation.”

• Dahl v. Bain Cap. Partners, LLC, No. 1:07-cv-12388 (D. Mass.). Robbins Geller attorneys served as co-lead counsel on behalf of shareholders in this antitrust action against the nation’s largest private equity firms that colluded to restrain competition and suppress prices paid to shareholders of public companies in connection with leveraged buyouts. Robbins Geller attorneys recovered more than $590 million for the class from the private equity firm defendants, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Carlyle Group LP.

• Alaska Electrical Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp., No. 1:14-cv-07126 (S.D.N.Y.). Robbins Geller attorneys prosecuted antitrust claims against 14 major banks and broker ICAP plc who were alleged to have conspired to manipulate the ISDAfix rate, the key interest rate for a broad range of interest rate derivatives and other financial instruments in contravention of the competition laws. The class action was brought on behalf of investors and market participants who entered into interest rate derivative transactions between 2006 and 2013. Final approval has been granted to settlements collectively yielding $504.5 million from all defendants.

• In re Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litig., No. 1:01-md-01409 (S.D.N.Y.). Robbins Geller attorneys served as lead counsel and recovered $336 million for a class of credit and debit cardholders. The court praised the Firm as “indefatigable,” noting that the Firm’s lawyers “vigorously litigated every issue against some of the ablest lawyers in the antitrust defense bar.”
  

• In re SSA Bonds Antitrust Litig., No. 1:16-cv-03711 (S.D.N.Y.). Robbins Geller attorneys are serving as co-lead counsel in a case against several of the world’s largest banks and the traders of certain specialized government bonds. They are alleged to have entered into a wide-ranging price-fixing and bid-rigging scheme costing pension funds and other investors hundreds of millions. To date, three of the more than a dozen corporate defendants have settled for $95.5 million.

• In re Aftermarket Auto. Lighting Prods. Antitrust Litig., No. 2:09-ml-02007 (C.D. Cal.). The Firm’s attorneys served as co-lead counsel in this multi-district litigation in which plaintiffs allege that defendants conspired to fix prices and allocate markets for automotive lighting products. The last defendants settled just before the scheduled trial, resulting in total settlements of more than $50 million. 

• In re Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Antitrust Litig., No. 4:02-md-01486 (N.D. Cal.). Robbins Geller attorneys served on the executive committee in this multi-district class action in which a class of purchasers of dynamic random access memory (or DRAM) chips alleged that the leading manufacturers of semiconductor products fixed the price of DRAM chips from the fall of 2001 through at least the end of June 2002. The case settled for more than $300 million.

• Microsoft I-V Cases, JCCP No. 4106 (Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Cnty.). Robbins Geller attorneys served on the executive committee in these consolidated cases in which California indirect purchasers challenged Microsoft’s illegal exercise of monopoly power in the operating system, word processing, and spreadsheet markets. In a settlement approved by the court, class counsel obtained an unprecedented $1.1 billion worth of relief for the business and consumer class members who purchased the Microsoft products.