Richard A. Koffman

Richard A. Koffman is a partner at Cohen Milstein and former co-chair of the Antitrust practice. He litigates antitrust cases on behalf of the victims of corporations engaged in price-fixing, market monopolization, and other unlawful conduct.

Mr. Koffman has repeatedly been recognized as one of the world’s top plaintiffs’ antitrust lawyers. Mr. Koffman is named in Global Competition Review’s “Who’s Who Legal: Thought Leaders – Competition 2022” – one of only 40 plaintiffs’ antitrust attorneys in the United States to earn this distinction. Since 2010, The Legal 500 has annually named Mr. Koffman as one of the top plaintiffs’ class action antitrust litigators in the United States, describing him as a “strong brief writer and an excellent oral advocate,” and inducted him into The Legal 500 Hall of Fame in 2017. Mr. Koffman was named Law360’s Competition Law MVP (2016), recognizing him as one of the top five most influential antitrust lawyers in the United States. Annually, Mr. Koffman also is named to Global Competition Review’s “Who’s Who Legal: Competition” (since 2016), Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers (since 2019), and Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers (since 2020).

Mr. Koffman has had the honor of serving as court-appointed Lead or Co-Lead Counsel in many landmark antitrust class actions, including the Urethanes Antitrust Litigation, which resulted in the largest price-fixing verdict in U.S. history and the largest jury verdict of 2013.

A former Senior Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust and Civil Rights Divisions, Mr. Koffman views his role in litigating antitrust lawsuits as an extension of the public interest work he pursued at the DOJ in promoting competition and fighting discrimination.

Recent case successes include:

• In re: Urethanes (Polyether Polyols) Antitrust Litigation (D. Kan.): Co-Lead Counsel for plaintiffs in an antitrust class action alleging a conspiracy to fix the prices of chemicals used to make polyurethane foam.  Four defendants settled pre-trial for a total of $139 million.  After a four-week trial, the jury returned a $400 million verdict for plaintiffs against the final defendant, The Dow Chemical Co., which the district court trebled to more than $1 billion.  Dow ultimately settled for $835 million while the case was on appeal, bringing the total recovery to $974 million – nearly 250% of the damages found by the jury.
• In re: Plasma-Derivative Protein Therapies Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Ill.): Co-Lead Counsel for plaintiffs alleging a conspiracy to reduce the supply and increase prices of IVIG and Albumin – life-saving therapies derived from blood plasma.  Mr. Koffman and his team obtained settlements totaling $128 million to compensate customers who were overcharged for these vital therapies.
• In re: Dental Supplies Antitrust Litigation (E.D.N.Y): Co-Lead Counsel for a proposed class of dental practices and dental laboratories. The case alleges that Defendants Henry Schein, Inc., Patterson Companies, Inc., and Benco Dental Supply Company – the three largest dental supply and dental equipment distributors in the United States – fixed price margins on dental equipment, jointly pressured manufacturers to squeeze out competitors, and agreed not to “poach” each other’s employees, in violation of federal antitrust law.  The Court granted final approval to an $80 million settlement on June 24, 2019.  In approving the settlement, the Honorable Brian M. Cogan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York stated, “This is a substantial recovery that has the deterrent effect that class actions are supposed to have, and I think it was done because we had really good Plaintiffs' Lawyers in this case who were running it.”