Antitrust

Champions for fair and competitive markets.

When corporations use their market power to hurt workers, consumers, investors or entrepreneurs, we fight back to ensure markets work for everyone.

Overview

We have earned a sterling reputation as one of the most widely respected plaintiffs’ antitrust practices in the country. We combat anticompetitive business practices through complex litigation that challenges price-fixing, wage suppression, group boycotts, and other anticompetitive behavior. Our clients include pension funds, hospitals, workers, and individual consumers. Our class action experience spans industries, including labor, finance, agriculture, automotive parts, chemicals, health care, high tech, media and entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and others.

We gladly take on – and defeat – formidable opponents, which have included such giants as Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, and Google.

A FORMIDABLE TEAM

Our attorneys have helped shape the antitrust landscape. Many have served as judicial law clerks; some in the Department of Justice and other governmental agencies, while others have experience litigating for the defense and bring special insight into the strategies of opposing counsel. All are adept at navigating the complexities of industry-specific economics.

As lead or co-lead counsel in some of the nation’s most complex cases we have recovered billions of dollars in damages for injured plaintiffs

  • We achieved a record-setting recovery as co-lead counsel In re Urethane Antitrust Litigation, a price-fixing class action. After settling with several defendants for $139 million, we went to trial against The Dow Chemical Company and obtained a $400 million jury verdict. After offsetting the prior settlements and trebling as provided for by statute, the court entered judgment against Dow for $1.06 billion dollars. The case against Dow ultimately settled for $835 million while Dow’s petition for certiorari was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Including the Dow settlement, we recovered a total of $974 million for the class – nearly 250% of the damages found by the jury. The jury verdict was the largest price-fixing verdict in the history of the United States, and the largest jury verdict in the country in 2013.  
  • Cohen Milstein currently serves as co-lead counsel in the Securities Lending Antitrust case, which alleges a group boycott of various platforms attempting to modernize the market for securities lending by the world’s largest investment banks.  Partial settlements of $580 million are awaiting court approval while the case is ongoing against Defendant Bank of America.
  • As co-lead counsel in the Electronic Books Antitrust Litigation, which alleged that Apple and five of the six biggest publishers in the U.S. conspired to raise the price of e-books, we litigated together with the Department of Justice and attorneys general from 33 states and territories. The case culminated in a settlement of $560 million, including a settlement of $450 million with Apple shortly before trial.  

Current Cases

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Hartford HealthCare Litigation

Estuary Transit District v. Hartford HealthCare Corporation (D. Conn.): Cohen Milstein, as court-appointed Co-Lead Counsel, is representing plaintiffs in a putative antitrust class action against Hartford HealthCare, one of Connecticut’s dominant hospital providers for unlawfully monopolizing, restraining trade, and engaging in price fixing in the Connecticut inpatient and outpatient health services markets.

Moehrl v. National Association of Realtors, et al.

Moehrl v. National Association of Realtors (N.D. Ill.): Cohen Milstein is co-lead counsel in this and three other parallel, certified class actions, in which home sellers allege that National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the nation’s largest real estate brokers conspired to require home sellers to pay the broker fees of home buyers. Since October 2023, Cohen Milstein and co-counsel have helped home sellers achieve more than $997.1 million in approved settlements, including a $418 million settlement against NAR, which included sweeping, industry-wide reforms and injunctive relief for home sellers.

Stock Loan Antitrust Litigation

Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, et al. v. Bank of America Corp., et al. (S.D.N.Y.): Cohen Milstein is co-counsel in this groundbreaking putative class action, in which investors accuse Wall Street banks of engaging in a group boycott and conspiring to thwart the modernization of and preserve their dominance over the $1.7 trillion stock loan market. On September 4, 2024, the court granted final approval of a historic $580 million cash settlement and significant injunctive relief against defendants Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and EquiLend. Litigation against Bank of America continues.

Past Cases

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In re Ductile Iron Pipe Fittings (DIPF) Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation

In re Ductile Iron Pipe Fittings (DIPF) Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation (D.N.J.): Cohen Milstein, as Co-Lead Counsel, represented direct purchasers of DIPF against McWane Inc., Star Pipe, and Sigma – the three principal manufacturers of DIPF in the United States for an alleged price fixing conspiracy. On May 10, 2018, the court granted final approval of an $8.8 million settlement against McWane, the last-remaining defendant, bringing total recoveries to more than $17.3 million.

In re: Cast Iron Soil Pipe and Fittings Antitrust Litigation

In re: Cast Iron Soil Pipe and Fittings Antitrust Litigation (E.D. Tenn.): Cohen Milstein, as Co-Lead Counsel, represented direct purchasers of cast iron soil pipes and fittings against McWane Inc. and Charlotte Pipe & Foundry – the two largest manufactures of CISPs in the country. On May 26, 2017, the court granted final approval to a $30 million settlement.

LIBOR Antitrust Litigation (Exchange Traded Class)

In re: Libor-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation (S.D.N.Y.): Cohen Milstein played a significant role in representing the putative Exchange-Based Plaintiffs class that was a part of this large multi-district litigation that was consolidated in 2011. On September 17, 2020, after significant litigation, the court granted final approval of a $187 million settlement between the Exchange-Based Plaintiffs and seven of the 16 of the world’s largest banks, and on April 26, 2024, the court preliminarily approved an additional $3.45 in settlements against the remaining defendants. The combined settlements totaling more than $190 million represent the largest recovery in a “futures-only” commodities class action litigation.