Antitrust

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Since its founding, Langer, Grogan & Diver has specialized in protecting small businesses and consumers against anticompetitive business practices.  It has litigated price-fixing cases, monopolization cases, and patent antitrust cases in diverse industries such as sports broadcasting, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural commodities. The firm’s clients have included small businesses, consumers in class actions, and generic pharmaceutical companies.

The firm’s senior partner, Howard Langer, served as lead counsel in In re Linerboard Antitrust Litigation, 2004 WL 1221350 (E.D. Pa. 2004). On behalf of purchasers of corrugated boxes, Mr. Langer obtained what was at the time the largest antitrust recovery within the Third Circuit. He has written a basic text on antitrust law, Competition Law of the United States, (Wolters Kluwer, 2d. Ed 2015) and, for the past ten years, has taught the primary antitrust lecture course at the law school of the University of Pennsylvania

New technologies have created new opportunities for big businesses to act in anticompetitive ways, and Langer, Grogan & Diver has made a niche at the intersection of cutting-edge developments in technology and antitrust law, most notably in its cases challenging anticompetitive broadcast practices of professional sports leagues such as the MLB, NHL, and the NFL in light of new streaming and distribution technologies.

If your business has been subject to anticompetitive conduct by a competitor, supplier, or customer, please contact us here.

Past Representation

In Laumann v. NHL, 56 F. Supp. 3d 280 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) and Garber v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball (S.D.N.Y.), the firm settled major antitrust actions against the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball. In these cases, major sports leagues agreed, for the first time, to unbundle their internet sports offerings and to offer individual team streams at discounted prices. The firm also obtained a major ruling concerning the application of the baseball antitrust exemption, in which the court ruled that the exemption does not cover baseball’s territorial broadcast rules

Lawyers at the firm helped develop the law in the area of pharmaceutical antitrust litigation in such cases as Chemi SpA v. GlaxoSmithKline, 356 F. Supp. 2d 495 (E.D. Pa. 2005); Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc., 1997 WL 805261 (E.D. Pa. 1997); and King Drug Co. of Florence Inc. v. Cephalon, Inc., 702 F. Supp. 2d 514 (E.D. Pa. 2010).

Thanks to the efforts of the firm’s lawyers, an auto parts supplier won an injunction against General Motors that would have destroyed the distributor’s business in Beilowitz v. General Motors Corp., 233 F. Supp. 2d 631 (D.N.J. 2002).

Current Representation

In re: NFL “Sunday Ticket” Antitrust Litigation (Nos. 24-5492, 24-5493 & 24-5691, 9th Circuit); National Football League v. Ninth Inning, Inc. (C.D. Cal.) – The firm represents a class of businesses and consumers in an action alleging an antitrust conspiracy between the NFL, its teams, and DirecTV to restrict access to out-of-market football games and drive prices up to access those games. After a landmark victory for the plaintiffs in the Ninth Circuit which overturned the district court’s ruling on Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, See In re National Football League’s Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation, 933 F.3d 1136 (9th Cir. 2019), the case is presently on appeal again following a three-week trial in the Central District of California.  In June 2024, a jury found that Defendants conspired to charge Plaintiffs inflated price for telecasts of “out-of-market” games. The jury’s verdict required the NFL to pay $4.7 billion in damages to class members.   Four weeks later, the district court granted the Defendants Judgment as a Matter of Law which overturned the jury verdict.  The case is pending before the Ninth Circuit (No. 24-5493). 

Winters v. Ocean Spray (D. Mass) – The firm represents independent cranberry growers against Ocean Spray in an antitrust action alleging that Ocean Spray monopsonized the cranberry production market using anticompetitive methods. A trial date is pending.

Host International, Inc. v. Marketplace, PHL, LLC (E.D. Pa.) – The firm represents a business alleging that pouring rights agreements, required of vendors at the Philadelphia International Airport, are anticompetitive restraints on trade.

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