Dechert

United States: Government Antitrust

Last year, the workload at Dechert’s antitrust group solidified the firm’s reputation as one of the country’s premier practices for clearing mergers under antitrust scrutiny, and defending closed deals that have come under fire from enforcers and private litigants. Who’s Who Legal nominee Paul T Denis leads the DC-based group, while fellow partner Paul H Friedman is also nominated. The firm also has talented teams in New York and Philadelphia.

The Dechert team’s merger docket was headlined last year by its work for Medco Health Solutions in its merger with Express Scripts – the largest consummated deal of the year so far. The matter combined two of the three largest pharmacy benefit managers in the US, and won unconditional approval from the FTC after an eight-month in-depth review. The team is also acting for Polypore in its appeal of an Eleventh Circuit decision upholding the FTC’s attempt to unwind its deal with Microporous. In another litigation, the team successfully defended Dean Foods against a milk price-fixing claim and reached a substantially favourable settlement for the company in another, similar class action. Elsewhere, the team is defending Travelport in both a DoJ investigation and a private antitrust case against American Airlines that challenge the company’s global distribution system travel agent business model.