Crowell & Moring LLP

United States: Government Antritrust

Partners Randolph Smith and Robert Lipstein lead Crowell & Moring’s sizeable and talented antitrust group. The Crowell team is another of DC’s antitrust practices that could easily be listed among the best in the city – and, therefore, the country. The group has 64 lawyers practising antitrust who have worked on some of the largest and most sophisticated deals and litigations in the US over the past year or more.

Merger work has been especially strong over the past year. The team lead the way for United Technologies in its purchase of Goodrich, the largest aerospace deal in history and one that required clearance in multiple countries. The team struck a global settlement with multiple enforcers around the world to get the deal through. The firm also handled several matters for DuPont, including the sale of its automotive and industrial coatings business to Carlyle, and Coventry’s acquisition by rival health plan Aetna. The team was also co-lead counsel to AT&T in its failed pursuit of rival T-Mobile. In litigation matters, the Crowell team is advising multiple major LCD purchasers in a class action against an alleged cartel in the industry, securing major settlements and preparing for trial next year. The group is also working for AT&T in the Apple/AT&T iPhone litigation.

United States: New York

Crowell & Moring continues to strengthen its profile on the New York litigation scene. Counsel and Who’s Who Legal nominee Olivier N Antoine, and the office’s group of skilled litigators, have worked with Crowell’s strong Washington, DC, and European teams to manage the kinds of competition cases that could make its rivals envious. The New York team has the ability and expertise to handle every kind of antitrust issue, from mergers to criminal prosecutions – and do it well.

The team worked on some of the largest and most sophisticated mergers last year, including achieving the successful clearance of United Technologies’ US$18.4 billion acquisition of Goodrich – the largest aerospace transaction in history, representing Coventry Health in its US$5.7 billion sale to Aetna, and acting for DuPont in a US$4.9 billion sale of its coatings business.

The collapse of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger did not signal the end of the firm’s work in the technology sector. The team has successfully argued for the dismissal of claims that AT&T worked with Apple to monopolise the iPhone and has represented Oracle in obtaining a substantial recovery in the DRAM litigation. Other antitrust-IP clients include Alcoa, Avaya, Cisco, Motorola, Mozilla, Rambus and Via Licensing.