In this major antitrust litigation, we represented the largest privately-held manufacturer of precast concrete products in North America (Jensen Precast). On its behalf, we challenged restrictive contracts made between the largest telecommunications provider in North America and an American subsidiary of global supplier of construction materials. We alleged that the two defendants had used restrictive contracts to confer illicit monopolies on one of them for the sale of underground telephone vaults in California and Nevada. We further alleged that this defendant had leveraged its monopoly positions to force property developers in California and Nevada to purchase only its electrical vaults. It reformed its conduct almost immediately after the case began.
The case entailed full-blown antitrust litigation in a federal district court and then in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2006 until 2010. The defendants ultimately prevailed after years of closely contested litigation. Before then, however, they curtailed one of their principal offending practices in response to the lawsuit. That allowed our client to resume making sales of an entire line of products that it had been prevented from selling (precast electrical vaults in the vast regions of California and Nevada served by AT&T’s landline network).
Defendants were represented by two teams of preeminent, world renowned antitrust attorneys. A federal district judge largely denied their motions to dismiss and outright denied their first round of motions for summary judgment. Much later in the case, the same judge granted a second motion for summary judgment, ending the case shortly before trial was scheduled to begin. By then, both sides had largely prepared for the trial.
We also handled the appeal, continuing to oppose some of the best antitrust practitioners in the world. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, definitively concluding the litigation.
From this experience, we learned to act as the lead attorneys in major antitrust litigation against dominant firms represented by world-leading antitrust attorneys both in trial court and on appeal. We also collaborated closely with Professor Robert Hall (ret.), an internationally famous and highly respected antitrust economist at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution.
This case also gave rise to a related class action against A&T, in which we and two other law firms represented property developers that had suffered losses because of closely related practices. Case Names: Jensen Enterprises, Inc. v. Oldcastle Precast, Inc. et al. (9th Cir., Case No. 09-15861); La Collina dal Lago, L.P. v. Pacific Bell Telephone Company (CA Sup. Ct., Sacramento Cty., Case No. 2009-00037035-CU-BT).
