Typically, defenders of companies in antitrust trouble are risk-averse. Fearing that assertiveness could backfire, they proceed with more caution than aggression in their dealings with lawyers from the Federal Trade Commission or the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division.
If antitrust lawyers get in a “no holds barred, knock-down drag-out fight with an opponent in litigation, they may be trying to get merger clearance from that same opponent the next month,” said Stolt-Nielsen’s co-lead defender, Christopher M. Curran, litigation practice chairman in White & Case’s Washington office.
