Counseling

We use our understanding of our clients' businesses and the real-world consequences of alternative courses of action to help our clients pursue their business objectives while minimizing litigation and regulatory risk.

The depth of our antitrust practice gives us the ability to quickly provide sophisticated advice on virtually any type of antitrust issue.  In addition to our work on mergers and joint ventures, we counsel clients on antitrust issues in areas such as pricing and promotional practices, group purchasing, distribution arrangements, exclusive contracting, supply agreements, territorial and customer restrictions, trade association activities, standards setting, joint research, co-marketing, pricing surveys, e-commerce and B2B exchanges.  We help clients create programs relating to volume discounts and rebates, promotional allowances, advertising allowances, minimum advertised prices, joint price advertising, Internet sales, pricing, loyalty programs and other matters.

We also advise clients on the development and implementation of antitrust compliance programs.  In addition to preparing written program materials, we create tailored training sessions for a variety of types of personnel, from field sales representatives to senior executives.  We also work with outside vendors to tailor computerized compliance programs to the needs of specific businesses.

Sonnenschein’s counseling clients range from individual companies to trade associations, standards-setting organizations and industry consortia.  Their industries include health care; pharmaceuticals; insurance; manufacturing; retail; franchising; consumer products; hotel/hospitality; real estate; technology; building products; agricultural products; travel; transportation; publishing/advertising; automotive; telecommunications; cable television/broadcasting; utilities; and many others.

We also assist clients with a variety of international antitrust matters, including investigations by various international competition authorities, such as the European Commission and Canadian Bureau of Competition; mergers and joint ventures potentially raising issues under foreign competition laws and/or pre-merger notification regimes; the U.S. antitrust consequences of international activities; and international actions impacting the ability of U.S. companies to sell to customers abroad.