Antitrust

Companies in every industry are expanding through acquisitions, mergers, and joint ventures. These transactions often pave the way to higher profits through increased scale. Conversely, they can expose participants to expensive, time-consuming antitrust litigation. Scopelitis has experience helping motor carriers, e-commerce ventures, and other enterprises design and negotiate transactions that minimize antitrust risks. We also represent companies and trade associations in countering as well as avoiding claims, including:

• Price fixing
• Group boycotts
• Eliminating competition
• Noncompete agreements
• Challenging opposing corporations’ conduct

Scopelitis attorneys know the enforcement processes at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department and can help clients navigate these agencies’ antitrust procedures. We also have experience presenting competition-policy arguments on behalf of corporate clients in federal regulatory proceedings. Our experience includes:

• Antitrust investigations of mergers and acquisitions, including Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification requirements
• Government challenges to competing companies’ standard-setting activities
• Litigation against transportation-carrier pooling agreements (joint ventures among competing carriers)
• Conducting compliance checks and providing antitrust training to executives, sales staff, and others
• Formation of B2B online joint-selling and joint-purchasing ventures
• Counseling companies on sharing of competitively-sensitive information
• Obtaining business review letters from the U.S. Department of Justice providing an advance green light for cutting-edge activities
• Conducting industry-wide surveys
• Preparing strategies to challenge independent contractors’ plans to strike
• Defending against unions’ illegal work acquisition campaigns

Transportation Aspects of Industrial Mergers and Acquisitions

Many manufacturers, distributors, and retail chains operate fleets of commercial trucks. When these companies negotiate mergers and acquisitions, questions about fleets may arise. These include placing a value on the companies’ transportation operations, assessing a trucking fleet’s vehicle and driver safety performance, identifying potential cost savings (including state and federal permits and fees), and more. Learn more about our Mergers and Acquisitions Practice.

Advertising and Marketing

Scopelitis lawyers have advised companies on advertising and marketing legal requirements under the Federal Trade Commission Act, enforced by the government, and the Lanham Act, under which companies can bring suit against each other. These laws regulate, among other things, false and deceptive advertising representations, including a failure to substantiate claims on the Internet and comparative price and quality advertising.