Antitrust Law Institute 2009 (50th Annual)

Overview

Why You Should Attend

Celebrating its 50th year, PLI’s annual Antitrust Law Institute has consistently been hailed as an invaluable resource for antitrust practitioners across the country. With an increasing number of Supreme Court decisions in critical areas of antitrust law, and with a new administration for antitrust enforcement, this year’s Institute will examine - with emphasis on both basic principles and new developments - the elements of alleged price fixing, competitor collaborations, rules for dominant firms, various restraints on customers and suppliers, including the current status of resale price maintenance, current merger analysis and enforcement, standards for compliance with U.S. price discrimination laws, and the strategies and priorities of the antitrust enforcers including increased cooperation among U.S. and foreign competition authorities. Learn practical tips from mock demonstrations of counseling on antitrust compliance.  Hear from an all-star team of nationally-known practitioners and key government regulators, and keep current with the latest issues in this hot practice area.

What You Will Learn

• Recent Supreme Court and lower court decisions addressing the new pleading standards for conspiracy
  and standards for per se and rule of reason treatment
• Latest developments affecting joint ventures, resale price maintenance, tying and bundling arrangements,
  monopolization, attempted monopolization, mergers, joint ventures, and price discrimination
• How to deal with government investigators in both civil and criminal matters
• How to deal with private treble damage antitrust litigation, including class actions that follow a Department of Justice criminal investigation or case
• Current areas of state antitrust law enforcement by State Attorneys General
• Current areas of foreign antitrust law enforcement, including recent actions by the European Union antitrust authorities, and the antitrust authorities of Japan, Korea, and other nations
• Antitrust compliance and business ethics
• International developments - what you need to know
• Impact of the new Supreme Court direction on antitrust law

Who Should Attend

This program is intended for in-house corporate counsel and attorneys in government and private practice.

Special Features

Live Webcast - Simultaneous live webcast of the New York session is available for individual viewing. Webcast participants will receive streaming audio and/or video of the program, view and print the Course Handbook, and have the ability to submit questions electronically.

For more information click on the Live Webcast link in the Related Items box.

Special Bonus to all Registrants

All attendees will receive a complimentary copy of PLI's comprehensive Course Handbook. This softcover, bound volume was written to augment the program and to stand alone as a permanent reference. PLI's Course Handbooks represent the definitive thinking of the nation's finest legal minds, and are often the standard reference in the field.

Please Note: Webcast attendees will receive a downloadable version of the Handbook one business day prior to the program.

PLI Group Discounts

Groups of 4-14 from the same organization, all registering at the same time, for a PLI program scheduled for presentation at the same site, are entitled to receive a group discount.  For further discount information, please contact membership@pli.edu or call (800) 260-4PLI.

PLI Can Arrange Group Viewing to Your Firm

Contact the Groupcasts Department via email at groupcasts@pli.edu for more details.

Cancellations

All cancellations received 3 business days prior to the program will be refunded 100%. If you do not cancel within the allotted time period, payment is due in full. You may substitute another individual to attend the program at any time.

Schedule

Please plan to arrive with enough time to register before the conference begins. A continental breakfast will be available upon your arrival.

DAY ONE:  9:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Morning Session: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

9:00  Introduction

9:15  Cartels and Other Horizontal Relationships

• Analysis of Section 1 of the Sherman Act
• Pleading requirements after Twombly
• Horizontal price-fixing
• Bidding coordination
• Allocation of customers and markets
• Concerted refusals to deal
• Per se and rule of reason scrutiny
• Recent developments in standard-setting including Rambus and N-Data
• Cross-license agreements and patent pools
• Recent developments in technology markets
• Formation, ancillary restraints, and conduct of joint ventures - implications of Dagher

Roxane C. Busey

10:45  Break

11:00  Monopolization

• Analysis of Section 2 of the Sherman Act - who’s at risk for a Section 2 claim?
• Elements of a claim and interpretation by the courts
• Essential case law update
• Managing the changing standards of “anticompetitive conduct”
• Defining relevant markets and market power
• Unilateral conduct at the interface of intellectual property and antitrust laws
• Loyalty and bundled discounts after LePage’s and PeaceHealth
• Price squeeze claims and Pacific Bell

William L. Greene

12:00  Lunch

Afternoon Session: 1:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

1:15  Acquisitions and Mergers

• Overview of Section 7 of the Clayton Act
• 1992 horizontal merger guidelines and H-S-R reporting
• Current enforcement activities - is more federal and state merger scrutiny on the way?
• Recent decisions involving unilateral and coordinated competitive effects
• Investigations of non-reportable transactions
• Retrospective challenges
• Gun jumping and pre-merger integration
• Consent decrees

William F. Dolan

2:15  Evolving Face of Resale Price Maintenance, Tying and Other Vertical Restraints

• Tips and practice strategies
• Establishing the “agreement” requirement
• Minimum advertised price programs
• Dual distribution
• Counseling in light of Leegin
• Exclusive dealing: Mitigating the risks of a claim
• Tying in the wake of Independent Ink and Microsoft
• Special considerations in aftermarkets and vestiges of Kodak
• Current government enforcement

Alan H. Silberman

3:30  Break

3:45  Managing Litigation Risks: HYPOTHETICALS

• Learn from real-world scenarios and explore approaches to issues involving:
  - Standard setting
  - Bundled discounts
  - Attempted monopolization
  - Minimum resale price maintenance
  - Predatory pricing
  - Exchange of competitive price information
  - Mergers

William F. Dolan, Mark McLaughlin, Alan H. Silberman, Stephen Y. Wu

5:00  Adjourn

DAY TWO:  9:00 A.M  - 4:15 P.M.

Morning Session:  9:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

9:00  Keynote: A Sitting Judge’s View of Antitrust

Hon. Diane P. Wood

9:30  Discrimination in Price and Promotions

• Elements of price discrimination
• Availability
• Functional discounts
• Secondary line injury and risks of private suits
• Counseling after Reeder-Simco
• Meeting competition and cost justification
• Buyer liability
• Advertising and promotional discrimination
• Proving antitrust injury and damages
• Dual distribution under the R-P Act

Theodore L. Banks, Mildred L. Calhoun

11:00  Break

11:15  Recent International Developments

• Cartel enforcement
• Abuse of dominance
• New enforcement guidelines in Europe - is the EU cracking down on antitrust violations?
• Antitrust in Asia, including China’s anti-monopoly legislation

W. David Braun

12:15  Lunch

Afternoon Session: 1:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.

1:30  Dealing with the Antitrust Enforcement Agencies

• Gain enforcement insight from the:
  - Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice
  - Federal Trade Commission
  - State Attorneys General Offices
• Reviewing the tightened amnesty program for corporations - learn practical tips to negotiate an amnesty agreement 

Mildred L. Calhoun, Robert W. Pratt, Marvin N. Price, Jr.

3:00  Break

3:15  Corporate Compliance and Ethics (one hour ethics credit)

• Conflicts of interest
• Attorney-client privilege including Akzo-Nobel
• Document destruction and retention
• Other “process” crimes

Theodore L. Banks

4:15  Adjourn

Faculty

Co-Chair(s)

Roxane C. Busey, Baker & McKenzie LLP
Alan H. Silberman, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP

Speaker(s)

Theodore L. Banks, President, Compliance & Competition Consultants, LLC; Counsel, Schoeman Updike Kaufman & Scharf LLP
W. David Braun, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Mildred L. Calhoun, Senior Counsel, Antitrust & Trade Regulation, BP America Inc.
William F. Dolan, Jones Day
William L. Greene, Leonard, Street & Deinard
Mark McLaughlin, Mayer Brown LLP
Robert W. Pratt, Chief, Antitrust Bureau, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Illinois
Marvin N. Price, Jr., Chief, Chicago Field Office, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Hon. Diane P. Wood, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals
Stephen Y. Wu, McDermott Will & Emery

Program Attorney(s)

Seema Lal Meehan, Program Attorney, Practising Law Institute

CLE Credit

Travel Information

Chicago Seminar Location

University of Chicago Gleacher Center, 450 N. Cityfront Plaza Drive, Chicago, Il 60611. (312) 464-8787.

Chicago Hotel Accommodations

Omni Hotel Chicago, 676 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611. Please contact the hotel directly at 1-800-THE-OMNI or (312) 944-6664. When calling, mention PLI and the name of the program you are attending.

Click this Omni Hotel Chicago link to facilitate the reservation process. You will be directed to the property's customized reservation page for this program.