The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) is pleased to announce that Michael J. Freed and Ellen Meriwether are the 2021 inductees to the Private Antitrust Enforcement Hall of Fame. They will be honored at AAI’s Awards Night on November 10, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Michael Freed
Michael Freed is a founder and is presently of counsel to the firm of Freed Kanner London and Millen LLC, a firm with offices in Bannockburn, Illinois and Conshohocken, Pennsylvania focusing on antitrust class actions and complex litigation. After starting his career as a trial and appellate attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D. C., Mr. Freed entered private practice, concentrating in antitrust class action litigation and other complex litigation.
Michael Freed is a founder and is presently of counsel to the firm of Freed Kanner London and Millen LLC, a firm with offices in Bannockburn, Illinois and Conshohocken, Pennsylvania focusing on antitrust class actions and complex litigation. After starting his career as a trial and appellate attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D. C., Mr. Freed entered private practice, concentrating in antitrust class action litigation and other complex litigation.
Mr. Freed has served as a lead counsel in many prominent antitrust class action cases, including Containerboard Antitrust Litigation, In re Opana ER Antitrust Litigation, In re Payment Card Interchange Fee Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, In re Aftermarket Filters Antitrust Litigation, In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litigation, In re High Fructose Corn Syrup Antitrust Litigation, In re Linerboard Antitrust Litigation (Sheets Class), In re Carbon Dioxide Antitrust Litigation, In re Infant Formula Antitrust Litigation, and In re Ocean Shipping Antitrust Litigation.
Mr. Freed has also served as a lead counsel in more than a dozen securities fraud, shareholder derivative, and consumer fraud actions. In all, more than $2 billion has been recovered for plaintiffs and plaintiff classes in cases in which Mr. Freed has served as a lead counsel, including three of the largest antitrust class action settlement recoveries in the history of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Freed has been recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America by Best Lawyers, an Illinois Super Lawyer by Chicago Magazine, an Illinois Leading Lawyer by the Leading Lawyer’s Network, and one of the top plaintiffs’ antitrust lawyers in Illinois by Chambers and Partners. He was honored by the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice for his exceptional pro bono efforts. Mr. Freed is a longtime member of the American Antitrust Institute’s Advisory Board.
In community public and legal service, Mr. Freed has served, among others, on the Board of Trustees of the Cancer Research Foundation in Chicago; as a Board Member of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law; as a trustee of the Appleseed Foundation in Washington, D.C.; as a member of the visiting alumni of the University Chicago School of Law; a Founding Member of the University of Chicago Alumni Association; and as a member of the International Board of Governors of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Ellen Meriwether
Ellen Meriwether has been a litigation partner with Cafferty Clobes Meriwether and Sprengel LLP since the firm’s inception in 1992 and concentrates her practice in antitrust litigation. She has held leadership positions in a number of the firm’s antitrust cases, including In re Cattle Antitrust Litigation, In re Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Litigation, In Re Restasis (Cyclosporine Ophthalmic Emulsion) Antitrust Litigation, and Kamakahi v. American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Ms. Meriwether is a Director of the AAI and has served on the Editorial Board of Antitrust, a magazine published by the Antitrust Law Section of American Bar Association, for the past 11 years, including three years as Editorial Board co-chair. In service to the antitrust community, Ms. Meriwether has authored a number of amicus briefs submitted both in the United States Supreme Court and in various Circuit Courts of Appeals, including briefs before the Supreme Court in Tyson Foods Inc. v. Bouaphakeo and in American Express v. Italian Colors.
Ms. Meriwether has published a number of articles on topics relating to complex, class action and antitrust litigation, including, among others, Antitrust Class Certification: The Use of Statistical and Representative Evidence to Establish Predominance of Common Proof, 93 Temple L. Rev. 553 (Spring 2021) (with Roberta Liebenberg); “The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Rule 23 Amendments: Are Class actions on the Precipice?” (Antitrust, Vol. 30, No. 2, Spring 2016); “Comcast Corp. v. Behrend: Game Changing or Business as Usual?” (Antitrust, Vol. 27, No. 3, Summer 2013); “Class Action Waiver And the Effective Vindication Doctrine at the Antitrust/Arbitration Crossroads,” (Antitrust, Vol. 26, No. 3, Summer 2012); and “The Hazards of Dukes: Antitrust Plaintiffs Need Not Fear the Supreme Court’s Decision,” (Antitrust, Vol. 26, No. 1, Fall 2011).
Since 2010, Ms. Meriwether has been included in the US News and World Report Publication of “Best Lawyers in America” in the field of Antitrust Law, and she has been named a “Pennsylvania Super Lawyer” each year since 2005. Ms. Meriwether is also active in the Philadelphia legal community, most notably as Board Chair of the Public Interest Law Center.AAI established the Private Antitrust Enforcement Hall of Fame in 2018 as an important part of celebrating the organization’s 20th anniversary and furthering the goals of progressive competition research, education, and advocacy that have defined AAI’s mission and success since its founding in 1998.
The Hall of Fame recognizes practitioners for three major contributions:
– Distinguished service to the private antitrust enforcement community;
– Commitment to the enforcement of the antitrust laws; and
– Success in fighting for competition, consumers, and workers.
Mr. Freed and Ms. Meriwether join AAI Private Antitrust Enforcement Hall of Fame inductees Joseph Goldberg, Roberta D. Liebenberg, and H. Laddie Montague Jr. Learn more about the AAI Private Antitrust Enforcement Hall of Fame here.
