Bona Law offers an independent antitrust claim evaluation: a privileged, fixed-fee, clear-eyed assessment of whether your potential antitrust claim is worth pursuing — performed by antitrust litigators who are paid for the answer, whatever the answer is.
Your company may hold a valuable claim. A supplier or platform cut you off. A dominant competitor is squeezing you out of a market. You bought, for years, from an industry that has now been accused of price fixing — or found liable for it. The antitrust laws award successful plaintiffs three times their damages plus attorneys' fees, and businesses recover real money under them every year. But private antitrust litigation is often a multi-year commitment that can cost millions of dollars, and most potential claims should never be filed. Before you spend litigation money — or walk away from a claim worth pursuing — the most valuable step is an answer you can rely on: what is this claim actually worth?
When Companies Ask Us for This
- A supplier, platform, or essential partner cut you off or refused to deal — or terminated you as a dealer or distributor — and you want to know whether the antitrust laws help you before you decide anything.
- A dominant company is blocking you from competing — through exclusive contracts, bundling, self-preferencing, or a campaign to keep you out of the market.
- Your competitors or trading partners appear to be acting in concert against you.
- A government enforcer — or another plaintiff — has already won against your counterparty, as in the Google monopolization decisions, and you want to know what those liability findings are worth to your company.
- Your company purchased from an industry accused of price fixing, and you must decide whether to stay in the class, opt out, or bring your own case — often against a deadline.
- A litigation funder or claims aggregator has approached you about your claim, and you want your own advice — from someone who is not buying a piece of it.
- Your board or audit committee wants an independent, privileged assessment of a potential claim before authorizing — or declining — the fight.
Why “Free” Evaluations Are Not Advice
You can get a potential antitrust claim evaluated free in several places. A contingency firm will screen it — to decide whether the case is worth the firm’s own investment. A litigation funder will assess it — to price a stake in your recovery. Both serve real purposes, and we work with both. But neither is advice to you. A meritorious claim that is not contingency-scale gets rejected without explanation; a strong claim gets valued by someone whose interest lies in a lower price. The evaluation you can rely on is the one performed by counsel whose only stake is the answer. Funders themselves know the difference: litigation finance companies retain Bona Law to assess the strength and risks of potential antitrust claims.
Independence matters in one more way. Many of the most valuable claims today run against the world’s largest platforms and other frequent antitrust defendants — companies that much of the antitrust bar represents and therefore cannot evaluate claims against. Bona Law is independent of the platform giants and the other companies that dominate antitrust dockets. We can look at your claim against them and tell you what we see. Every engagement remains subject to a conflicts check, and we will tell you promptly if we cannot take yours on.
What the Evaluation Covers
We evaluate your claim the way we would build it — and the way the other side would attack it:
- Liability. Which antitrust theories fit your facts — monopolization, refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tying, group boycott, price fixing — and what each requires you to prove.
- Antitrust injury and standing. The requirements that quietly kill more private antitrust claims than any other — antitrust injury, standing, and the indirect-purchaser rules.
- Market definition and market power. Whether a defensible market exists in which the conduct matters — the battleground where most monopolization cases are won or lost.
- Damages. A realistic view of what the claim is worth — the damages theory, what an economist will need, and what trebling does and does not mean in practice.
- Timing. The four-year statute of limitations, tolling, and any deadlines — including class opt-out dates — already running against you.
- Survivability. How the claim holds up where cases actually die: the motion to dismiss, summary judgment, and the exemptions and immunities that defeat otherwise-good claims — and, where a government judgment already exists, the head start that Clayton Act Section 5(a) and collateral estoppel can give you.
- Cost and structure. What pursuing the claim would realistically cost, over what timeline, and the fee and funding structures — hourly, hybrid, contingency, third-party funding — that could carry it.
- Your options. Filing is only one. We compare demand and negotiation, opting out versus staying in a class, monetizing or assigning the claim, waiting, and doing nothing.
What You Receive, and What It Costs
The evaluation proceeds in two phases, each for a fixed fee quoted before we begin. Phase one is a focused screen: we review the key documents and data you have, interview the people who know the facts, and deliver a privileged written assessment of the claim’s viability — liability, injury, timing, and a preliminary view of value — with a recommendation. For many companies, phase one is the whole product: it either retires the question or justifies the next step. Phase two, where warranted, is the full workup: damages analysis suitable for discussion with economists and litigation funders, venue and strategy, a litigation budget, and a concrete plan. Companies use the phase-two assessment with boards, with funders, and as the foundation of the case itself.
The fee is fixed, quoted up front, and does not depend on the answer.
The Answer Might Be No
A meaningful share of our evaluations end with a recommendation not to sue — the claim is time-barred, the injury is not antitrust injury, the market cannot be defined, or the recovery cannot justify the fight. When that is the answer, we say so plainly, in writing, and the engagement ends there if you want it to. The cheapest words in antitrust are “you don’t have a case,” said early. That candor is the product — and it is why an evaluation from us means something when it says yes.
If the Answer Is Yes
You own the evaluation and owe us nothing further. Some clients take it to litigation funders — we understand how funders evaluate antitrust claims, and our written assessment is built to answer their diligence questions. And some ask us to bring the case: Bona Law litigates antitrust cases in courts across the country, on both sides, including monopolization and exclusionary-conduct cases against some of the largest companies in the world. On the plaintiff side, our record includes the published Tenth Circuit reversal in Chase Manufacturing v. Johns Manville, the $24 million settlement Lucasys secured in its exclusionary-conduct case against PowerPlan, and the monopolization case we brought against Amazon on behalf of Zulily. On the defense side, we won summary judgment for Foster Farms in a nationwide price-fixing MDL. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
If you are a law firm, the evaluation works as a second opinion or a pre-referral assessment: an independent read on your client’s potential claim before you decide whether to refer it, fund it, or co-counsel it with us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the evaluation privileged?
Yes. Once we clear conflicts and you engage us, the evaluation is attorney-client privileged legal advice. Please do not send us case details before the engagement is in place.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee, quoted before we begin, scaled to the complexity of the claim and scoped in two phases so you never buy more analysis than the question needs.
How long does it take?
We work quickly, but each project is unique, with its own scope, so we will give you a schedule with the quote.
What do you need from us?
Less than you might think: the key agreements and correspondence, basic sales or purchase data, and time with the people who know the facts. We will send a short, specific list after conflicts clear.
Will you just tell us what we want to hear?
No — that is the point. The fee does not depend on the answer, and our evaluation may recommend against filing.
Will you take the case if the claim is strong?
Sometimes, if you ask and we have the capacity — including, for appropriate affirmative-recovery matters, on hybrid or alternative fee arrangements. But the evaluation is not an audition for us, and you are never obligated to go further with us.
Start With the Question
If your company is weighing a potential antitrust claim — or a deadline is forcing the question — contact us. Tell us who the parties are and what kind of dispute it is; we will check conflicts, gather more information, quote a fixed fee, and answer the question.