From a global perspective, Sidley’s antitrust lawyers are helping clients anticipate and respond to a wide range of significant antitrust and consumer protection matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team is uniquely qualified to assist in responding to or seeking contacts with antitrust and consumer protection enforcers and includes a former Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, two former General Counsels of the Federal Trade Commission, and former staff lawyers at both the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. In addition, our lawyers have experience successfully litigating against federal and state antitrust and consumer protection agencies.
Our capabilities extend across the following areas:
- Competitor collaborations
- Assist companies with structuring antitrust-compliant competitor collaborations designed to address disruptions caused by COVID-19 and representing those companies before government antitrust agencies to obtain approval for the arrangement
- Distribution agreements
- Advise companies on antitrust considerations relating to new or revised distribution structures to address COVID-19 disruptions
- Restructuring assistance
- Assist distressed companies considering or undergoing restructuring to undertake corporate arrangements including sales to limit antitrust exposure and speed completion of the process
- Excessive pricing/price gouging
- Assist clients in understanding and complying with state and local excessive pricing and anti-price gouging laws
- FTC and state consumer protection investigations
- Represent firms that become the subject of federal or state consumer protection claims, particularly with regard to medical or other product claims and product pricing or allocation
- Expedited merger clearance
- Assist entities seeking swift transactions to avoid failures obtain antitrust clearance as swiftly as possible
