The lawyers at Langer, Grogan & Diver have specialized in antitrust law. Howard Langer, the firm’s senior partner, teaches antitrust law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The firm has represented plaintiffs and defendants in a variety of cases under both Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Howard Langer served as sole lead counsel in In re Linerboard Antitrust Litigation, which resulted in the largest antitrust recovery within the Third Circuit—over $200 million—and one of the largest ever reached in the country. The case alleged a conspiracy among the manufacturers of linerboard, a key component in the manufacture of corrugated boxes, to coordinate shut downs of their mills to decrease inventories and raise the prices of corrugated boxes. The case raised fundamental issues under the antitrust laws and the class action rules, all of which were the subject of a key decision of the Court of Appeals that fully sustained the plaintiffs’ position. In re Linerboard Antitrust Litig., 305 F.3d 145 (3rd Cir. 2002).

The firm has consistently been involved in cases on the cutting edge of antitrust law. In In re Automotive Refinishing Paint Antitrust Litigation, 358 F.3d 288 (3d Cir. 2004), it obtained a key appellate decision on the jurisdiction of the American courts over foreign corporations under the antitrust laws and governing the degree to which foreign corporations were subject to discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

More recently, the firm has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in the burgeoning field of patent-antirust law relating to the pharmaceutical industry. In Chemi SpA v. GlaxoSmithKline, 356 F. Supp. 2d 495 (E.D. Pa. 2005), a patent-monopolization case relating to the drug Relafen, the firm established the rights of a manufacturer of the active pharmaceutical ingredient incorporated in drugs that were ultimately manufactured and marketed by generic drug manufacturers to sue a patent holder who had allegedly fraudulently obtained the patent. In Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 1997 WL 805261 (E.D. Pa. 1997), Howard Langer persuaded the Court that the antihistamine Seldane could constitute a relevant product market, notwithstanding the allegedly strong competition from other antihistamines such as Claritin.

The firm presently represents the American affiliate of the largest Canadian pharmaceutical company, Apotex, which is involved in patent-antitrust litigation, brought by certain purchasers of the patented drug Plavix, a drug for which Apotex had developed a generic equivalent. In Association of Minority Contractors and Suppliers v. Halliday Properties, Inc., 1998 WL 480835 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 13, 1998), lawyers from the firm obtained summary judgment dismissing the claims against the defendants in a case alleging monopolization of construction market in Chester, Pennsylvania.