The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) held its first annual Antitrust Enforcement Awards tonight, honoring litigation achievements in economics and private law practice.
ApplEcon’s Janet Netz was awarded Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Economics for her work In re TFT-LCD Antitrust Litigation. Dr. Netz was the principal testifying expert for the indirect purchaser plaintiffs (IPPs) in the price-fixing case against a number of large Asian manufacturers of flat panel LCD screens incorporated in TVs, computer monitors, and laptops. The IPP case settled for a total of $1.082 billion cash, by far the largest all-cash indirect purchaser settlement in history, and one of the largest in any private civil antitrust case.
Finalists in the Economics category were David D. DeRamus of Bates White for ZF Meritor, LLC v. Eaton Corp. and Hal J. Singer of Navigant Economics for Tennis Channel v. Comcast. Nathan Associate’s Russell Lamb received an Honorable Mention for his work In re Titanium Dioxide Antitrust Litigation.
The top award in the Law Practice category went to Steve Shadowen of Hilliard | Shadowen LLC for his work in In re K-Dur Antitrust Litigation. Shadowen was a principal author of the appellate briefs and presented the appellate argument in the Third Circuit on behalf of the purchaser plaintiffs in K-Dur. The K-Dur opinion created a definitive circuit split that the Supreme Court had to address. The FTC and plaintiffs had been trying for years to get the Supreme Court to weigh in and abolish the scope of the patent test. Through Shadowen’s efforts, the courts now subject reverse payments to substantial antitrust scrutiny. This advocacy will benefit consumers by ensuring that generic drug manufacturers settle patent cases without the taint of unlawful pay-offs.
Finalists in the Law Practice category were Joe Goldberg of Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward P.A. for In re Urethane Antitrust Litigation and William A. Isaacson of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP and James T. Southwick of Susman Godfrey for In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation. There were three Honorable Mentions in the Law Practice Category:
- W. Joseph Bruckner of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, Bruce L. Simon of Pearson Simon Warshaw LLP, Steven A. Hart of Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, and Daniel D. Owen of Polsinelli PC for Minn-Chem, Inc. v. Agrium Inc
- Steven F. Benz and Joseph S. Hall of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, PLLC and R. Stephen Berry of Berry Law PLLC for Ritz Camera & Image, LLC v. SanDisk Corp.
- The Zelle Hoffman Team of Fran Scarpulla, Craig Corbett, Judith Zahid, Patrick Clayton, Qianwei Fu, and Heather Rankie for In re TFT-LCD Antitrust Litigation
More than 200 leaders of the antitrust community attended the gala awards dinner held at the J.W. Marriott in Washington D.C. The 2014 awards will be given on December 2, 2014. Call for entries will begin in summer 2014.
