Boies Schiller Flexner stands out among its peers as excelling in both the defense and prosecution of complex, high-stakes antitrust cases, including multibillion-dollar class actions and opt-outs. Our experience in devising and implementing litigation and trial strategies for plaintiffs and defendants benefits our clients on both sides of the “v”. Whether as plaintiffs or defense counsel, one of the key distinguishing characteristics of our firm is that we are not hesitant to go to trial, if that is what is called for. Our partners have served as lead trial counsel or co-lead trial counsel in some of the most important antitrust cases in history, including United States v. Microsoft and United States v. AT&T, the case that broke up the Bell System. As The National Law Journal explained, “the firm from its inception has focused on preparing cases for trial from the first day of the case.”
The firm’s partners include former senior officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, including a former Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, allowing us to provide insights into government strategy to our clients who find themselves subject to civil or criminal antitrust investigations. Our partners have a strong record of successful outcomes in defending mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures before antitrust enforcement agencies at the state and federal level, including at trial when necessary.
The firm has been at the cutting edge of litigation applying antitrust laws adopted during an age of widgets and factories to the internet age of big data, the gig economy and bitcoin. We have represented new technologies, like Solar City and Uber, under threat from semi-regulated monopolies. We have broken new legal ground in cases involving two-sided markets, such as our defense of American Express against a Justice Department challenge to its anti-steering rule, and we have taken on tech giants such as Google in markets that defy traditional boundaries – in which competitors are also customers and products are at once competitors and complements.
We have experience in industries that span the world economy, including in finance, credit cards, investment and commercial banking, securities, commodities trading, consumer electronics, software and computers, telecommunications, health care, pharmaceuticals, durable medical and dental equipment, insurance, airlines, oil and gas, agricultural inputs, food service, chemicals, and clothing and apparel.
The firm’s antitrust work has won every major award from leading publications and ranking services, including The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, and Time Magazine; we are currently ranked by Chambers USA, Chambers Global, and Legal 500; and we have been recognized by the American Antitrust Institute with the Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Law Practice award.