Joint Buying and Selling

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

The depth of our antitrust practice enables us 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 the antitrust issues related to group purchasing organizations (GPOs), buying clubs, co-marketing agreements, pricing surveys, e-commerce purchasing and marketing issues, and B2B exchanges. 

Representative Experience:

• Drafted bid-solicitation documents and created grievance process for health care GPO to minimize antitrust exposure to unsuccessful bidders.  
• Represented GPOs in antitrust litigation and threatened litigation.
• Reviewed GPO supplier contracts for antitrust issues, and drafted template GPO contracts to minimize antitrust exposure.
• Provide legislative counseling to health care GPO regarding the U.S. Senate's review of the role of GPOs in the health care industry.
• Regularly provide counseling to GPO in the education supply industry regarding various member issues and member sub-groups.
• Acted as general counsel to start-up GPO serving the plumbing and HVAC parts distribution industry.  Work included drafting by-laws and establishing procedures for soliciting bids from potential suppliers and handling competitively sensitive information from GPO members.
• Provided antitrust counseling to various co-marketing collaborations, including in retail and  mortgage lending industries.

In addition to these regular client representations, our antitrust attorneys have been at the forefront of establishing government policy with respect to competitor collaborations and have been significant contributors to these policy statements:

• FTC/DOJ Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors.
• FTC Report on Competition Policy for Business-to-Business (B2B) Electronic Marketplaces.
• Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition: A Report by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.