Sullivan & Cromwell has a very diverse antitrust practice, successfully litigating private antitrust cases and government enforcement actions, as well as representing clients before competition law agencies around the world. The Firm has consistently been ranked among the world’s leading competition law firms by independent analysts and prominent legal publications.

• In 2009, for the ninth consecutive year, Chambers Global recognized S&C as one of the leading antitrust firms in the United States.
• Global Competition Review has consistently cited S&C as one of the leading competition law firms in the world, naming the Firm as a member of the GCR 100 in every issue since the publication’s inception in 1999.
• In each of its consecutive editions since 2003, Chambers USA has identified S&C among the leading antitrust firms in New York. 
• PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook has recommended S&C as a leading antitrust/competition firm in consecutive editions, from 2001 to the present.
• The Legal 500: United States has noted the view of clients that S&C’s antitrust practice is “First-rate in all respects” and “offers a winning blend of premier trial lawyers and skilled antitrust practitioners.”

S&C takes a multidisciplinary approach to every matter, drawing on its deep antitrust experience and coupling that with the Firm’s leadership position in corporate, financial and transactional matters. The Firm has extensive experience representing clients from a variety of industry segments before competition authorities and courts in the U.S., the European Union and elsewhere. Importantly, S&C’s antitrust lawyers are capable of moving seamlessly from providing advice to handling litigation, including any necessary appeals, without changing the members of the team.

The Firm also has an enviable track record of securing U.S. antitrust clearances for domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions and dispositions in the face of heightened scrutiny of such transactions by U.S. antitrust enforcement authorities. S&C is active in the antitrust aspects of some of the largest M&A transactions every year.

S&C focuses on developing long-term client relationships. Thus, the Firm’s approach to antitrust advice emphasizes in-depth understanding of each client’s business. S&C antitrust lawyers provide advice relating to high-level business strategies, mergers (including any related litigation), antitrust investigations and threats of private litigation and, where appropriate, challenges to other companies’ anticompetitive practices. The complexities of our clients’ businesses are quickly mastered by S&C’s antitrust lawyers.

Significant Antitrust Matters

S&C represents many of the world’s leading business and financial enterprises in their most significant antitrust matters, including numerous representations and investigations that have never become public.

Since 1991, the Firm has represented Microsoft in government investigations as well as in private antitrust litigation brought in numerous jurisdictions by competitors and classes of end-users of Microsoft software, obtaining dismissals on the merits of dozens of cases. Recently, the Firm successfully resolved a major case for Microsoft following a three-month jury trial in Iowa.

S&C also has prevailed in court and before enforcement agencies on competition law-based challenges to the assertion of valuable intellectual property rights. For example, S&C obtained dismissal on summary judgment of a $1 billion antitrust claim brought against Philips Electronics relating to CD technology that included tying, monopolization and price-fixing allegations.

The Firm has obtained clearances for numerous mergers from U.S. and European antitrust authorities, including: Alcan Inc. in its $43 billion acquisition by Rio Tinto; AmSouth Bancorporation in its $10 billion merger with Regions Financial; Archipelago in its $10.5 billion merger with the New York Stock Exchange; The Bank of New York, Inc. in its $16.5 billion merger with Mellon Financial Corporation; and Endesa in the $58.4 billion tender offer by Enel and Acciona, as well as the prior unsolicited tender offers by E.ON and Gas Natural SDG. S&C represented InBev in its $60.8 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch as well as in its sale of Rolling Rock and its U.S. Import Agreement with Anheuser-Busch.

In the last two years, S&C has handled important antitrust-related matters for AIG, Akzo Nobel, AmSouth Bancorporation, The Bank of New York, Barclays, Billabong, British Airways, British Petroleum, CA, Cablevision, Condé Nast Publications, Diageo, Eisai, EnCana, Endesa, Fiserv, Goldman Sachs, Hilton Hotels, InBev, J.C. Flowers & Co., KarstadtQuelle, Kodak, Koninklijke Philips Electronics, Manuli Rubber Industries, Markem, Microsoft, Morgan Crucible, Network Solutions, Ohio Casualty, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Rio Tinto, Rolls-Royce, Scottish Power, Solvay, Tenaris, Ternium, UnitedHealth Group, VeriFone Holdings, Wachovia and Willis Group.