Practice Areas

Effective counseling in antitrust cases requires a sensitivity to the client's business situation combined with a realistic understanding of the potential risks under the antitrust laws. Likewise, a deeper understanding of the economics of a client's business is essential to effective trial advocacy, particularly as courts struggle to apply antitrust laws - some more than a century old - to modern products and business practices. As a result, our attorneys approach antitrust laws not as a set of cut-and-dried rules but as an evolving area of law in which creativity, as well as a thorough understanding of the facts and law, is essential to achieve the superior results our clients expect.

Howard Rice has extensive experience in antitrust and trade-related litigation, counseling and transactional support. We handle everything from advising start-ups on structuring their businesses to avoiding antitrust problems to litigating high-stakes state and federal antitrust cases. We have particular experience in the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property issues, which often arise with copyright and patent licenses.

We represent clients in a variety of industries, including the computer hardware and software, insurance, pharmaceutical, consumer electronics, banking, agriculture, utilities and construction industries. Our litigation attorneys have handled substantial actions in federal court throughout the country under the Sherman and Robinson-Patman Acts, as well as numerous cases in state court brought under California's Cartwright Act, the Unfair Competition Act, and the Unfair Practices Act.

• Strategic antitrust counseling
• Antitrust compliance programs
• Robinson-Patman compliance reviews
• Joint ventures
• Hart-Scott-Rodino filings

• Civil investigative demands and FTC proceedings
• Price-fixing and monopolization litigation
• Price discrimination litigation
• Class actions, including indirect purchaser litigation
• Unfair competition actions
• Sales below cost and other trade practice litigation

Howard Rice achieved a complete victory for its client, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, in the streamlined trial (for estimation purposes in bankruptcy) of a claim by municipal utilities that PG&E had monopolized the transmission system and effectively denied access to an essential facility in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The municipal utilities claimed damages of billions of dollars and asserted that PG&E's reorganization plan was not feasible because it did not reserve billions for this liability. Our attorneys showed at trial that under controlling Ninth Circuit precedent, PG&E's pricing for transmission services did not give rise to antitrust liability. In addition, following a contested hearing on the admissibility of the municipal utilities' damages model, the bankruptcy court concluded that the municipal utilities had not "established any meaningful measure of damages." The bankruptcy court estimated the claim as having zero value. The decision is reported at In re PG&E, 295 B.R. 635 (Bankr. N.D. Cal. 2003).

When Kmart Corporation was sued in California state court, it turned to Howard Rice. The suit alleged unfair competition and other consumer claims arising out of the company's allegedly widespread, if unintentional, overcharging of customers at the checkout counter. Plaintiffs sought damages for themselves and a class of customers and restitution on behalf of the general public in excess of $30 million. We designed a strategy to systematically knock the legs out from underneath the plaintiffs' claims. In pretrial motions, the firm persuaded the court to deny class certification outright and to limit the Section 17200 claim in certain material respects. At the close of the plaintiffs' case at trial, we moved for judgment in favor of the company, arguing that, given the factual stipulations and evidence brought to light in the cross-examination of plaintiffs' own expert, plaintiffs' statistical case was so flawed that the company should not even have to present its own countervailing evidence. This motion, too, was granted and judgment was entered in favor of our client, dismissing the remaining claims in their entirety and awarding our client its costs of the suit.

Representative Clients

• Longs Drug Stores
• Pacific Gas and Electric Company
• Teichert Construction

Related Groups

• Consumer & Product Liability Litigation
• Intellectual Property Counseling & Transactions
• Intellectual Property Litigation
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Trial Practice