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Top Antitrust Lawyers Launch New Boutique Firm

By  |  October 1, 2024

Antitrust lawyers from two prominent law firms have joined forces to create a new boutique antitrust practice, just days after the Biden administration intensified its efforts to tackle monopolistic practices. According to Bloomberg, attorneys from Constantine Cannon and Robins Kaplan are launching the firm shortly after the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Visa Inc. demonstrated the government’s continued scrutiny of corporate giants.

The new firm, Shinder Cantor Lerner, is being founded by former Constantine Cannon partners Matthew Cantor and Jeffrey Shinder, along with Kellie Lerner, the former co-chair of Robins Kaplan’s antitrust and trade regulation group. The firm will operate out of New York and Washington, D.C.

“We’re in a moment where antitrust has a resurrected profile, which had languished for 50 years,” Shinder said in an interview, per Bloomberg.

This move comes at a time when antitrust litigation has become a key focus for many law firms, driven by the Biden administration’s active enforcement of competition laws. The recent Justice Department lawsuit against Visa accuses the payment processor of monopolizing the debit card market by imposing penalties on merchants and paying off potential rivals. This is part of a larger trend, as both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission set a record for merger challenges in fiscal year 2022.

Related: Antitrust Under Biden: Taking a Closer Look at the Numbers

Lerner noted that this antitrust momentum is unlikely to lose steam, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins, the current direction of antitrust enforcement is too entrenched to reverse easily.

“You can’t unscramble the egg,” Lerner said. “What this administration has done to push forward antitrust is not something that can be pushed back in any easy way.”

Shinder Cantor Lerner will launch with 10 partners and plans to expand, hiring between 15 and 20 attorneys over the next year. According to Bloomberg, the firm will offer clients alternative fee arrangements, including hybrid payment models, and aims to serve both plaintiffs and defendants. It will focus on a broad range of antitrust issues, including anti-competitive mergers, market allocation, and monopolization, as well as newer areas like algorithmic price fixing.

Source: Bloomberg

Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Halts Ruling in Consumer Bureau Battle Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Halts Ruling in CFPB Battle

Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Halts Ruling in Consumer Bureau Battle

By  |  April 3, 2025

A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily put on hold a lower court ruling that had delivered a significant victory to government employees and consumer advocates opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts to curtail the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). According to Reuters, the decision maintains a temporary pause while the court considers an emergency request from the Justice Department to overturn the previous ruling entirely.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stopped short of reversing any provisions set forth by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in her March 28 ruling. Per Reuters, her decision had ordered the CFPB to reinstate dismissed employees, restore canceled contracts, and continue performing its legally mandated duties. However, the appellate judges left in place interim measures preventing the administration from taking further action against agency staff or halting essential operations.

Despite the temporary stay, the three-judge panel emphasized that the decision should not be interpreted as an indication of their final ruling. “The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the order stated, according to Reuters.

Related: CFPB Allows Some Operations to Resume Amid Legal Challenge

The Justice Department formally notified the court on Saturday of its intent to challenge Judge Berman Jackson’s order, seeking to overturn her directive that prevented the administration from erasing agency data, terminating employees, or discontinuing active contracts. The Trump administration’s moves against the CFPB began in February when the president dismissed the agency’s director and granted officials from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency extensive access to sensitive CFPB data systems. The actions resulted in widespread layoffs, contract cancellations, and office closures, prompting consumer protection groups and affected workers to file a lawsuit denouncing the changes as unlawful.

According to Reuters, agency leadership has since attempted to walk back some of these measures, a move Judge Berman Jackson described as likely “a charade for the court’s benefit.” While the appeals court’s temporary stay keeps aspects of the lower court’s ruling in place for now, the broader legal battle over the CFPB’s future remains unresolved.

Source: Reuters