Gary A. MacDonald is a parter at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He has a diversified antitrust practice that includes litigation and arbitration, government enforcement matters, mergers and acquisitions, and antitrust counseling. With respect to antitrust litigation, Mr. MacDonald’s practice focuses on complex litigations involving, in particular, price-fixing and monopolization. For example, he is representing KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in a number of treble-damage class action litigations involving the air cargo and air passenger industries. Mr. MacDonald obtained dismissal of all plaintiffs’ claims in two of those actions. In the first of those actions, he argued and won a dismissal of a putative class action filed against KLM and several other airlines, on the basis that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction as excluded by the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act. (See McLafferty v. Deutsche Lufthansa A.G., KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, et al., 2009 WL 3365881 (E.D. Pa. 2009)) In the second of those actions, the court dismissed a putative class action filed against KLM and other airlines, based on plaintiffs’ failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Procedure, based on the pleading standard articulated by the Supreme Court in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009). Also, Mr. MacDonald is lead counsel representing KLM in a multidistrict treble-damage action filed in In re TransPacific Passenger Air Transportation Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1913 (N.D. Cal.). In addition, Mr. MacDonald is representing Southwest Airlines in connection with its defense of a private federal court challenge to Southwest’s acquisition of Airtran. Further, Mr. MacDonald represented Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC); CIBC World Markets Corp.; Cowen and Company LLC; ABN AMRO, Inc.; and ING Barings LLC, in putative class actions alleging violations of federal antitrust laws, all of which were favorably resolved.
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On June 4, 2013, the White House announced a set of executive actions and legislative recommendations to address the issue of frivolous litigation brought by companies that assert patents without also manufacturing a product based on those patents. That same day, the National Economic Council, (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2012 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. Competition authorities around the globe are taking an increasingly active part in the pursuit of civil claims for damages for antitrust infringements. The (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2012 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On June 20, 2011, in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision holding that discrimination claims on behalf of (...)
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As the credit and capital markets continue to revive, companies around the world considering a return to greater mergers and acquisitions activity may be right to wonder whether recent antitrust law developments should deter those considerations. Notwithstanding the attention the various new (...)
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On April 16, 2010, Judge Maxine M. Chesney of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a complaint raising a private antitrust challenge to the merger of Pfizer, Inc. and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, because she concluded that the complaint failed sufficiently to (...)
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On April 5, 2010, Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued a Memorandum and Order dismissing the plaintiffs’ putative antitrust class-action complaint against KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and others for failing to state a claim. The plaintiffs (...)
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On March 29, 2010, Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg upheld antitrust lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and private plaintiffs against drug maker Cephalon, Inc. (Cephalon), alleging that Cephalon conspired with four generic drug manufacturers to delay generic competition for the (...)
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On February 22, 2010, Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust lawsuit alleging that Solvay Pharmaceuticals (Solvay) conspired with generic drug makers Watson Pharmaceuticals (Watson) and Par Pharmaceuticals (Par) to delay generic competition for the (...)
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On April 27, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission adopted final rules amending Parts 3 and 4 of its Rules of Practice. The adoption of these rules is a culmination of efforts going back a couple of years to make changes that would expedite adjudications of allegedly anti-competitive merger (...)
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The Ninth Circuit evaluated the antitrust implications of multiproduct or “bundled” discounts in Cascade Health Solutions v. PeaceHealth, CV-02-06032 (Sept. 4, 2007). In doing so, the Ninth Circuit rejected the controversial Third Circuit rule of LePage’s Inc. v. 3M, 324 F.3d 141 (3d Cir. (...)
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In a 7-2 decision on May 21, 2007, the Supreme Court held that a complaint alleging antitrust conspiracy based on parallel conduct alone fails to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, No. 05-1126. Further, the Court held that a bare (...)
