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Corporate Plaintiff Affirmative Recovery

Zelle attorneys were at the forefront of the affirmative recovery “opt-out” practice as it was first developing. In 1999, Zelle attorneys filed individual Sherman Act claims on behalf of over 150 individual plaintiffs in the In re Vitamins Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1285, and ultimately secured them settlements of $2 billion. Since then, our team has successfully represented, through trial, numerous individual plaintiffs that have opted out of the class action to aggressively pursue single damages in the tens to hundreds of millions each. Zelle’s clients operate across a broad range of markets, including packaged foods, paper products, industrial products, financial instruments, and pharmaceuticals.

With a robust corporate recovery practice, we help clients recover losses suffered because of antitrust violations by their suppliers, competitors or other industry participants. We identify and assess the anticompetitive conduct, determine the scope of a client’s injury and the value of a potential claim, and recommend strategies to maximize recovery. In some cases, that might mean monitoring an existing class action and working with the claims administrator to maximize the value of the client’s claim in the settlement distribution process. In other situations, we might recommend that clients file individual actions (by “opting out” of the class action) when it is cost-effective to do so. The opt-out plaintiffs we represent typically recover two to three times what they would have recovered had they stayed in the class action and shared in the class recovery.

Representative Matters

United HealthCare Services, Inc. v. Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, et al., No. 5:21-cv-02710-RS (N.D. Cal.)
Represents United HealthCare Services, Inc. in an individual antitrust matter against the manufacturers of the branded pharmaceutical drug, Xyrem, and its generic equivalents, alleging they entered into unlawful pay-for-delay and market share-allocation agreements to maintain artificially inflated supracompetitive prices of Xyrem for several years. (United HealthCare Services, Inc. v. Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, et al., No. 5:21-cv-02710-RS (N.D. Cal.)
El Pollo Loco, Inc. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., et al., No. 1:20-cv-01943 (N.D. ILL.)
Represented El Pollo Loco, Inc. in an individual antitrust matter against the nation’s major broiler chicken suppliers, alleging a capacity-reduction and price-fixing conspiracy; this matter has been consolidated with In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:16-cv-08637.
United HealthCare Services, Inc. v. Actavis Holdco U.S., Inc., et al., No. 2:19-cv-00629-CMR (E.D. Pa.).
Represents United HealthCare Services, Inc. in three individual antitrust matters against the makers of more than 200 generic pharmaceutical drugs, alleging a widespread price-fixing and market allocation conspiracy; this matter has been consolidated with In re: Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 2724. (United HealthCare Services, Inc. v. Actavis Holdco U.S., Inc., et al., No. 2:19-cv-00629-CMR (E.D. Pa.))
In re LIBOR-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 2262, No. 1:11-md-02262 (S.D.N.Y.).
Representing Freddie Mac and the FDIC as Receiver for 39 Closed Banks and serves as liaison counsel for more than two dozen DAPs). Freddie Mac and the FDIC allege, among other things, that defendants’ horizontal conspiracy reduced product quality in the market for interest-rate benchmarks.

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Corporate Plaintiff Affirmative Recovery

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