Antitrust Counseling & Compliance

O’Melveny’s Antitrust & Competition practice offers an industry-leading breadth and depth of experience in counseling clients on antitrust matters worldwide. Our team benefits from regulatory and policy insight with public enforcers like the US Department of Justice, the US Federal Trade Commission, US Attorney’s Offices, the European Commission, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, the Hong Kong Competition Commission, and other agencies, many of whose staff are former colleagues of ours.

We counsel clients on the nuances of US antitrust laws (including the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, FTC Act, and Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act), on EU law under Articles 101 and 102 of the TFEU, China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, and a range of other competition, foreign direct investment screening, and unfair competition laws. That major companies repeatedly call on us to defend them in complex, multi-jurisdictional antitrust matters in highly scrutinized industries—including computer electronics, semiconductors and related products, photonics, telecommunications, airlines and other transport, automotive components, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, financial services, and consumer products—is testament to our hard-earned reputation for producing exceptional results in challenging circumstances.

O’Melveny’s Antitrust & Competition counseling and compliance practice excels in many areas.

• Multi-Jurisdictional Antitrust Merger Reviews. We help clients successfully manage and navigate antitrust merger and foreign direct investment, national security, and foreign subsidies screening processes. We collaborate with our clients to analyze a potential transaction, craft appropriate risk-shifting contractual provisions in merger agreements, and identify and execute on any necessary filings. Post-filing, we draw on our technical knowledge, deep understanding of the regulatory process and personnel, and our broad experience to persuade regulators to clear transactions on the swiftest available track.
• Joint Ventures and Strategic Minority Investments. We routinely advise clients on the potential risks of strategic investments in light of Clayton Act Section 8 complexities involving interlocking directorates, EU, China and other competition laws. We counsel clients on restrictive agreement issues and the sharing of sensitive information under Sherman Act Section 1, Article 101 TFEU, and equivalent laws in other key jurisdictions. We also help clients identify Clayton Act Section 7 issues related to the Hart-Scott-Rodino risk of disclosing minority investments.
• Conduct Investigations, Litigation, and Complaints. Comprised of former prosecutors, senior enforcers, and other leaders of the antitrust bar, our team provides advocacy in high-stakes investigations, litigation, and complaints—guiding clients from agency query to resolution or motivating regulatory intervention in matters that may adversely affect our clients’ business interests and strategic objectives. Our lawyers have earned credibility with regulatory agencies in navigating civil investigative demands and other information requests surrounding business practices and activities that may impact antitrust and competition laws and policies globally.
• Labor Markets. Our lawyers advise companies across multiple industries on DOJ criminal and civil investigations as well as investigations of global regulators into no-poach, non-compete agreements, wage-fixing and other employment-related practices that might implicate antitrust issues. Our team advises on FTC and other competition authorities’ investigations into labor markets, including enforcement under Section 5 of the FTC Act, US state attorney general inquiries under state antitrust laws, European and Asian competition, and global unfair competition statutes.
• Collaboration Agreements. We help clients craft distribution, licensing, R&D and other cooperation agreements. We also routinely advise on pricing and advertising policies and resale price programs that take into account evolving US federal and state laws, EU, China, and other antitrust and competition laws.
• Compliance Monitoring, Audits, and Programs. Clients rely on us to help them navigate enforcement regimes with robust compliance counseling, antitrust audits, and antitrust compliance programs. We develop and implement advanced, practical compliance programs for companies operating worldwide. We apply fundamental antitrust frameworks while tailoring those programs to a client’s business model, mindful of the nuances of a particular industry, and work closely with in-house legal teams with an eye toward minimizing risk. We leverage our expertise in cartel and other government investigations to conduct internal antitrust and competition compliance audits for clients, so as to improve their corporate compliance programs.