Competition group of the year: White & Case

Law360 has named global law firm White & Case LLP’s Antitrust team “Competition Group of the Year.” The annual awards recognize firms that have achieved “the biggest litigation victories or deals of the year.”

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Competition group of the year: White & Case
_Law360

White & Case LLP scored early wins against algorithmic price-fixing litigation on behalf of hotel chain Four Seasons and netted a nearly $407 million judgment for client Regeneron against Amgen, earning the firm a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Competition Groups of the Year.

Hotels have been a key target of a number of lawsuits accusing companies with algorithmic recommendation software of facilitating price-fixing across a range of industries. White & Case has been right in the middle of the litigation efforts, so far successfully defending Four Seasons in cases accusing the chain and its luxury peers of violating antitrust law through their use of Amadeus IT Group and SAS Institute Inc.

“We’re at the tip of the spear, in terms of what will likely be kind of an entirely new part of antitrust law,” firm partner Frank Hogue said. “White & Case is well situated to apply our thinking to other industries that will certainly see the same kind of scrutiny that hotels and apartments and healthcare and others have seen.”

An Illinois federal judge in late March threw out an earlier complaint against Amadeus and its customers, finding that using the company’s software doesn’t mean the hotel chains have signed on as “hubs” in a “hub-and-spoke” conspiracy. The judge also concluded that simply sharing information with Amadeus doesn’t amount to price-fixing.

Another federal judge in July similarly tossed a separate California complaint against Four Seasons and others, centered on their use of SAS subsidiary IDeaS. The plaintiffs in both cases have since amended their complaints, which the hotel chains are once again looking to dismiss.

Hogue said defending Four Seasons as century-old antitrust law is applied to rapidly evolving modern technology requires “great creativity and innovative thinking,” an area where White & Case excels, he argued.

Older class actions have established a well-worn playbook for plaintiffs and the law firms defending against them, he said.

“Here, there is no playbook,” Hogue said.

Without such a roadmap, and in the earliest stages of algorithmic pricing litigation, “we tried to kind of get back to first principles” by harnessing the underlying themes of antitrust law focused on competition and innovation, Hogue said.

White & Case counts 250 attorneys who spend at least some of their time in antitrust law.

Among White & Case’s other recent wins, the firm represented Regeneron in its case alleging that Amgen illegally bundled cholesterol drug Repatha with its blockbuster, allegedly market-dominant anti-inflammatories, Enbrel and Otezla.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged conduct caused pharmacy benefit managers to choose Repatha over Regeneron’s cholesterol drug, Praluent; affected the prices Regeneron was able to charge; and interfered with the company’s business. A Delaware federal court agreed in May, resulting in a nearly $407 million judgment that Amgen continues to fight.

J. Mark Gidley, White & Case’s global competition practice co-head, pointed to the firm’s international successes.

Those included the October judgment from the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal for client Nexans SA, which found that the plaintiffs can’t claim that an alleged price-fixing cartel among Nexans and other power cable manufacturers targeting offshore wind farms resulted in higher costs being passed on to consumers. The court ruled that the damages were offset by a government subsidy scheme that provided financial support for renewable energy producers.

“We saved the client $350 million,” Gidley said.

The judgment was the tribunal’s first pass-on damages case and followed a 2014 European Commission fine. The tribunal’s ruling also applied to an action being brought by the London Array wind farm in southern England, which is suing Nexans for overcharges on power cables allegedly stemming from the cartel. The tribunal said London Array and Nexans both agreed that any overcharges based on a government subsidy would not be passed on to consumers.

According to White & Case, the tribunal nixed 80% of the damages sought by London Array, while Nexans is appealing the remaining 20%.

Gidley says the firm’s wins are borne from decades of experience.

“We basically take all of the learnings of the United States and apply them to the common issues that apply in class actions around the world,” he said.

Gidley attributes the firm’s general success, especially internationally, with the yearslong interpersonal relationships of its lawyers, with the close collaboration between American attorneys and local counsel in Europe, and with a regional structure that ensures profits are shared both within individual offices and across whole areas.

“The firm’s compensation structure gives us a unique desire to work with each other and not kind of hoard work in an office,” he said.

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