James M. Pearl

Partner

James Bo Pearl is a partner in O’Melveny’s Century City office and a member of the Business Trial and Litigation and Antitrust and Competition Practices. Bo was recognized in 2010 as a Top 10 Competition Attorney Under 40 by Law 360.  Bo focuses on antitrust, accounting, entertainment, and general business litigation.

Illustrative Professional Experience

• Representing leading seller of discount show tickets in Las Vegas in Section 2 Sherman Act action.
• Representing multinational agricultural manufacturer in worldwide antitrust action.
• Represented Advanced Micro Devices in worldwide monopolization suit against Intel and related worldwide and domestic regulatory investigations and in November 2009, obtained US$1.25 billion settlement and wide-ranging injunctive relief.  The historic settlement was one of the largest single plaintiff recoveries ever reported.
  • The settlement capped a series of litigation and regulatory wins around the world:
    • In May 2009, the European Commission issued a $1.4 billion fine against Intel for its violations of Europe’s competition laws, the largest fine ever issued by the European Commission
    • In 2008, the Korea Fair Trade Commission issued a US$25 million fine against Intel for its violations of Korea’s competition laws
    • In 2005, the Japan Fair Trade Commission found that Intel violated Japan’s competition laws; Intel did not contest the findings and agreed to an injunction
  • Led two-year investigation into Intel document retention practices
• First-chaired four-week criminal jury trial for City of Redondo Beach resulting in conviction of defendant on both counts after just two hours of jury deliberation
• First-chaired a week-long criminal jury trial for City of Redondo Beach which resulted in conviction of defendant for assault on minor
• Second-chaired two-week bench trial of criminal defendant wrongly accused of felony gun possession; won full acquittal in bench trial
• Represented 14-year-old Salvadoran child in oral argument at Ninth Circuit and obtained new trial and successful reversal of deportation order
• Represented client in federal robbery case in Orange County and obtained below-guideline sentence
• Represented a "Big Four" accounting firm and led briefing team of several major law firms and achieved dismissal of US$500 million corporate fraud suit at the pleading stage
• Represented a "Big Four" accounting firm in special purpose entities suit brought by a major moving and storage company
• Represented a major bookstore chain in antitrust suit brought regarding allegedly discriminatory pricing from publishers and achieved settlement after two weeks of trial that was labeled by the national press as a "complete surrender" by the plaintiffs
• Represented a casino in shareholder securities suits and obtained three dismissals at the pleading stage
• Represented a motion picture studio in price fixing and price discrimination suit brought against seven movie studios regarding revenue sharing in the home video industry
• Represented a computer hardware company in its injunction against "knock-off" products
• Represented several recording artists in litigation regarding intellectual property

Prior to joining the Firm, Bo was a White House intern and also worked for Former Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown, Jr.

Professional Activities

Awards,  Named Top 10 Competition Lawyers Under 40 by Law 360 (2010); named a "Rising Star" in a survey conducted by Law & Politics Media Inc. and published in Los Angeles magazine (2008, 2009)
Speaker,  "Dominating the World: How Monopolists Face an Increasingly Uncertain Fate in the Courts and Before Global Regulators" (Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy, March 2010); “AMD v. Intel: A Case Study” (UCLA Law, November 2009)
Member,  American Bar Association, Antitrust and Litigation Sections; California State Bar, Antitrust Section