Crowell & Moring’s Antitrust Group attorneys are currently addressing a variety of issues related to the COVID-19 crisis, including those involving:
- joint competitor supply chain management (i.e. sharing of sensitive supplier qualification/credit information)
- price gouging and pricing responses
- customer allocation and collaborative customer responses
- other related antitrust issues.
In addition, we are seeing a significant increase in requests for advice on coordinated industry lobbying and policy advocacy (i.e. Noerr-Pennington) advice, both from trade associations and from individual companies and groups.
Other developing issues we are consulting on or anticipating include “Next Wave” of issues, such as:
- Follow-on investigations and litigations addressing anticompetitive arrangements created during the pandemic
- Competitor collaboration counseling as COVID-19 continues to affect industry
- Agency insight /counseling as agencies navigate staffing concerns, and concerns from businesses related to competitor collaborations to remain viable
- Uptick in mergers as companies look at strategic acquisitions that may be more affordable in an economic downturn
- Increase in EU State Aid work as the government intervenes to support companies affected by the COVID-19 crisis
Current Antitrust COVID-19 representative matters including:
- Advising a major pharmaceutical association on antitrust aspects of collaboration between pharmaceutical companies in Europe to ensure appropriate supply of essential drugs in the fight against COVID-19.
- Advising a major consumer-facing company regarding the applicability of pricing controls in the State of California triggered by the governor’s coronavirus-related declaration of a state of emergency.
- Advising a trade association on how to talk about the virus and the pricing of member services without tripping antitrust wires.
- Assisting a trade association on proposed legislation enhancing FTC authority over price gouging during exigent circumstances.
- Advising a major car rental company on anti-price gouging statutes that have been triggered by the states of emergency that have been declared at the state and national levels.
- Representing multiple trade associations in management of antitrust risk associated with crisis benchmarking and joint government advocacy exercises, and with other competitor collaborations and industry meetings/communications.
- Advising a major distributor on best practices in response to government-coordinated all-industry crisis response.
- Advising a major industrial client on antitrust risk management issues associated with supply chain, production, and sales collaborations with competitors.
- Advising several travel industry clients on structure and management of industry-wide government-facing lobbying and advocacy efforts and antitrust immunity under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.
-
Advising
a large food retailer on the antitrust aspects of a joint project with
competing food retailers to enable medical personnel to have their groceries
delivered at their hospital for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. We
obtained informal clearance from the President of the Belgian Competition
Authority in half a day.
- Advising
providers and suppliers entering into collaborative care arrangements with
competitors to isolate COVID-19 patients in order to ensure antitrust and fraud
and abuse compliance and to address operational questions related to billing
and reimbursement for such services.