Retail, E-Commerce & Consumer Products Antitrust Lawyers

Bona Law litigates and counsels at the center of retail and e-commerce antitrust. We represent Zulily in its federal antitrust lawsuit against Amazon — a Sherman Act monopolization case alleging that Amazon punishes retailers who compete on price; the core monopolization and anti-discounting claims survived Amazon’s motion to dismiss. We won a published Ninth Circuit decision for PharmacyChecker.com, an online pharmacy price-comparison and verification company, and defeated the RICO and Lanham Act counterclaims filed against it. We won another published Ninth Circuit precedent for a nutritional-supplement company whose rival secretly rigged a purportedly independent product-ratings guide. And we defended one of the nation’s largest online contact-lens retailers in a nationwide price-fixing MDL. With more than 15 antitrust attorneys, we represent retailers, marketplaces, consumer brands, and the companies that sell through them — on both sides of the pricing and distribution questions that decide who gets to compete for the consumer.

Antitrust pressure on this industry has never been higher. Multiple separate antitrust trials against Amazon are scheduled — the FTC’s monopolization case, the California Attorney General’s case, certified nationwide class actions, and the case we brought for Zulily. The FTC brought its first Robinson-Patman Act price-discrimination case in decades, and the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a private Robinson-Patman verdict. States are passing algorithmic and surveillance-pricing statutes, and state attorneys general are probing retailers and grocers for pricing practices. Minimum advertised price and resale-price rules that are legal under federal law can be per se illegal under state law. For companies that make, market, or sell consumer products, competition law is no longer a background risk — it is the operating environment.

Why retail, e-commerce, and consumer-products companies hire Bona Law

We are already in the arena. Bona Law represents Zulily in one of the few competitor-side monopolization cases against Amazon to survive a motion to dismiss. We also counsel sellers and brands on Amazon marketplace issues every year, from pricing-policy enforcement to suspension and brand-protection disputes with antitrust dimensions.
We do one thing: competition. Monopolization, resale-price maintenance and MAP, Robinson-Patman, price-fixing class defense, false advertising between competitors, merger review — the doctrines this industry runs on are the doctrines our entire firm litigates and writes about every day, including on The Antitrust Attorney Blog, where our pricing and distribution explainers are among the most-read antitrust resources on the internet.
We work both sides of the pricing and distribution divide. We advise manufacturers and brands designing MAP and distribution policies, and we represent retailers and resellers on the receiving end of them. We defend companies in price-fixing class actions and bring affirmative claims for businesses harmed by dominant platforms and suppliers. And because we are independent of the platform giants and the largest consumer companies, we can take the matters conflicted firms cannot.
Boutique economics. Retail margins are thin and legal budgets are real constraints. We offer scoped engagements, alternative fee arrangements, and early assessments — including a clear-eyed evaluation of whether your antitrust claim is worth bringing before you spend litigation money. Growth-stage and direct-to-consumer brands can start with our getting-started antitrust resources.

Representative experience

Zulily LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc. (W.D. Wash.). Represent Zulily in a Sherman Act Section 2 monopolization and Section 1 action alleging that Amazon used anti-discounting practices to suppress retail price competition and target Zulily specifically. The core monopolization and anti-discounting claims survived Amazon’s motion to dismiss on December 31, 2024. Read the announcement about the original complaint.
PharmacyChecker.com v. NABP, LegitScript, et al. (S.D.N.Y. / D. Or. / Ninth Circuit). Long-running antitrust action for an online pharmacy price-comparison and verification company alleging a group boycott by industry gatekeepers. The litigation has produced a published Ninth Circuit decision holding that alleged wrongdoing by a plaintiff does not strip it of antitrust standing, and a January 2026 ruling dismissing LegitScript’s RICO and Lanham Act counterclaims.
In re Disposable Contact Lens Antitrust Litigation (M.D. Fla. MDL). Defended one of the nation’s largest online contact-lens retailers in a nationwide price-fixing class-action MDL involving uniform pricing policies in the disposable contact lens industry.
Ariix, LLC v. NutriSearch Corp. (Ninth Circuit). Won a published, precedential Ninth Circuit decision for a nutritional-supplement company, holding that allegations that a purportedly independent product-ratings guide secretly rigged its ratings to favor a paying competitor satisfied the commercial-speech element of a Lanham Act false-advertising claim — a leading precedent for the fake-review era. Read our analysis of its reach.
Distributor-termination litigation against USANA Health Sciences (D. Utah). Represented one of USANA’s most successful distributorships in breach-of-contract and good-faith-and-fair-dealing litigation arising from the termination of a long-running consumer-products distributorship.
LensDiscounters.com — fee award against a patent troll (S.D. Fla.). Defended the online contact-lens retailer against patent-assertion claims and won an award of attorneys’ fees against the patent assertion entity.
Competition advocacy for online contact-lens retail. Filed a Tenth Circuit amicus brief for an online contact-lens retailer challenging Utah restrictions on uniform pricing policies, and submitted an FTC comment for a leading online contact-lens retailer on competition and consumer choice in contact-lens distribution.
Amazon marketplace counseling — sellers and brands (confidential). Counseled numerous companies that sell on Amazon on pricing-policy enforcement, MAP and distribution policies, marketplace conduct, and the strategic interplay between brand-protection programs and antitrust risk.
MAP, pricing, and distribution counseling (confidential). Ongoing counseling for manufacturers and retailers on minimum advertised price programs, resale pricing, and distribution structures — from both the brand and the reseller perspective — including two 2026 engagements for consumer-products companies enforcing and navigating MAP policies.
Nutritional-supplement manufacturer — distribution dispute counseling (confidential). Advised a nutritional-supplement manufacturer on potential claims against a former distributor involving unauthorized sales, pricing misrepresentations, and related brand-harm issues, evaluating contract, false advertising, unfair competition, and trademark theories.
Consumer-product recall class action defense. Represent Foster Farms, a food-products manufacturer, in a putative class action arising from a consumer-product recall, defending against consumer-protection and class-wide economic-loss theories.
Consumer-products price-gouging class actions. Represented a major egg producer in multiple class actions alleging violations of state price-gouging laws during supply disruptions, defending pricing practices across overlapping state-law regimes.
CPG retail-data antitrust litigation (prior representation). Brought federal group-boycott, tying, and refusal-to-deal claims for a data-analytics firm serving the natural and organic consumer packaged goods market against dominant retail-data rivals; the court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss, and the case drew significant trade-press coverage. The firm is no longer involved in the case.

Our retail, e-commerce, and consumer-products team

Jarod Bona (Founder, CEO, and Partner, San Diego) — founded The Antitrust Attorney Blog and authored the firm’s widely read explainers on MAP policies, resale-price maintenance, and the Colgate doctrine — the analyses businesses in this industry actually find when pricing questions arise; litigates monopolization and distribution disputes nationwide.
Jon Cieslak (Partner, San Diego) — represents Zulily in its antitrust lawsuit against Amazon; defended price-fixing class and MDL claims involving lithium-ion batteries, local television advertising, and bail bonds; recognized by Best Lawyers for antitrust and commercial litigation.
Jim Lerner (Partner and Director of Litigation, New York) — represents Zulily against Amazon and helped secure the dismissal of LegitScript’s RICO and Lanham Act counterclaims for PharmacyChecker.com; brings three decades of cartel-defense experience (vitamins, lysine, CRT, lithium-ion batteries) and counsels on distribution issues.
Luke Hasskamp (Partner, San Diego) — represented Ariix in the Lanham Act false-advertising litigation against NutriSearch, and wrote the firm’s analysis of the resulting precedent’s reach for consumer brands.
Aaron Gott (Partner and Chief Operating Officer, Minneapolis) — argued and won the Ninth Circuit appeal in Ariix v. NutriSearch, the leading precedent on rigged “independent” product reviews; has served as outside general and litigation counsel to a major online contact-lens retailer and as general counsel to a frozen consumer-packaged-goods company; chairs the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Section Council and is recognized by Best Lawyers for antitrust litigation.
Steve Cernak (Partner, Detroit) — former Chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section; counsels manufacturers and retailers on MAP, pricing, distribution, and trade-association issues, and is the blog’s lead author on the Robinson-Patman Act’s revival; named to The Best Lawyers in America® 2027 for antitrust, his eighth consecutive year.
Kristen Harris (Of Counsel, San Diego) — serves as Vice Chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Trade, Sports, and Professional Associations Committee; author of the firm’s explainer on the Colgate doctrine and resale-price maintenance.

Where antitrust risk (and opportunity) arises in retail and e-commerce

Marketplaces and platform dominance. When one company controls the channel most shoppers use, everything it does — pricing policies, the buy box, fees, self-preferencing — raises monopolization questions. Sellers, rival retailers, and brands each face different versions of the same question: compete on the platform’s terms, or challenge them. We litigate and counsel on both answers — and for technology and platform companies themselves, our Software & Technology industry page covers these doctrines from the other side of the screen. And as AI assistants begin to stand between consumers and every purchase they make, our attorneys are examining who will control the customer’s first — and last — question in our series Platforms, AI, and the Fight for Consumer Choice. The government’s monopolization wins against Google matter here too: they hand private plaintiffs findings on monopoly power and market definition that they may not have to relitigate — we explain how in The Google Monopolization Decisions: A Roadmap for Private Antitrust Plaintiffs.

Pricing and distribution: MAP, RPM, and the Colgate doctrine. Minimum advertised price programs and resale-price-maintenance agreements are judged under the rule of reason federally — but states like California and Maryland treat RPM as per se illegal, and the line between a lawful unilateral Colgate policy and an unlawful agreement is where most programs fail. We design, audit, and enforce these policies for brands, and we challenge them for retailers when they cross the line — work covered in depth on our Distribution, Dealer Termination & Pricing Practices practice page.

Robinson-Patman and buyer power. Price discrimination law is back: the FTC filed its first Robinson-Patman case in decades against a major distributor, and the Ninth Circuit’s 2026 decision affirming a private Robinson-Patman verdict — which we analyzed as it came down — has created a circuit split that favors plaintiffs. Disfavored retailers have live claims; suppliers and large buyers need compliance answers they have not needed since the 1980s.

Price-fixing class actions, investigations, and opt-outs. Consumer-products companies are perennial targets of price-fixing class actions and government investigations — and large retailers and brands are also class members with real money at stake in settlements, including the interchange-fee litigation. We defend these cases — including a summary judgment win for Foster Farms in the nationwide turkey price-fixing MDL — respond to subpoenas and civil investigative demands, and help companies decide when opting out and pursuing their own claim beats staying in the class.

Algorithmic and surveillance pricing. States are moving first: California, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, and New York have enacted algorithmic- and surveillance-pricing statutes, state attorneys general are demanding answers from retailers and grocers, and the FTC has opened rulemaking on personalized pricing. Dynamic pricing, personalized offers, and shared pricing algorithms now carry both antitrust and consumer-protection exposure — before the tools are even fully deployed. We have tracked the algorithmic-pricing cases from the beginning, and we help retailers adopt these tools without becoming the test case.

Advertising, reviews, and brand disputes. Competition among consumer brands is fought in reviews, ratings, and claims — and the Lanham Act polices it. Our Ninth Circuit win in Ariix established that secretly rigged “independent” ratings can be actionable false advertising, and the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule adds federal enforcement against fake reviews. We bring and defend these claims between competitors. For a practical guide to when fake reviews and rigged ratings are actionable, read Can You Sue for False Advertising Over Fake Reviews and Rigged “Independent” Ratings?.

Retail and consumer-brand M&A. Deals in this industry — brand acquisitions, roll-ups, distribution combinations — draw HSR scrutiny and second requests, and state-level merger review is expanding. We handle premerger strategy, filings, and merger advocacy for consumer-facing transactions.

How we help

Antitrust litigation — plaintiff and defense: monopolization, anti-discounting and platform-conduct claims, group boycotts, tying, exclusive dealing, bundled discounts, and Robinson-Patman matters for retailers, brands, marketplaces, and suppliers.
Class action and MDL defense: defending consumer-products and retail companies in price-fixing, consumer-protection, and recall-driven class actions — and advising class members on opt-out strategy.
Pricing and distribution counseling: MAP policy design, audit, and enforcement; resale-price and Colgate-policy structuring; distributor and reseller relations; state-law pricing traps. See our Distribution, Dealer Termination & Pricing Practices practice page.
Investigations and subpoena response: DOJ, FTC, and state attorney general investigations, and third-party subpoenas from the industry’s mega-cases.
False advertising and brand disputes: Lanham Act claims and defense between competitors, including fake and rigged review matters.
Independent claim evaluation: a clear-eyed assessment of whether your antitrust claim against a platform, supplier, or competitor is worth bringing.
Appeals: a dedicated appellate practice with published antitrust and false-advertising wins in the federal courts of appeals.

From our writing

Selected retail, e-commerce, and consumer-products analysis from The Antitrust Attorney Blog and our resources library:

Frequently asked questions

Is a minimum advertised price (MAP) policy legal? Usually — if it is structured and administered correctly. A true unilateral policy is treated differently from an agreement on resale prices, and federal law is more forgiving than states like California and Maryland, where resale-price agreements remain per se illegal. Most MAP problems come from enforcement practices, not the policy document. We design and audit these programs, and we represent resellers when a program crosses the line.

My company sells on a dominant marketplace and is being squeezed — do we have an antitrust claim? Maybe. Platform pricing policies, buy-box suppression, fee stacking, and self-preferencing can support monopolization or unlawful-agreement theories in the right circumstances — courts have allowed several such cases to proceed, including ours, and the government’s monopolization wins against Google give private plaintiffs additional footholds. Whether your claim is worth bringing depends on market definition, injury, and economics, and we will evaluate that before you spend litigation money.

Is the Robinson-Patman Act really back? Yes — enforcement and private litigation have both revived. The FTC sued a major distributor for price discrimination, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed a private Robinson-Patman jury verdict in 2026 under a plaintiff-friendly standard. If you are a disfavored buyer, you may have a claim; if you sell at different prices to competing customers, you should understand your exposure now.

We were sued in — or subpoenaed for — a price-fixing class action. What now? Move quickly: preservation obligations attach immediately, and early strategic decisions (including scope negotiations for subpoena recipients) determine most of the cost. We defend consumer-products and retail companies in these cases and represent third parties caught in the discovery net of the industry’s mega-cases.

A competitor is using fake or rigged reviews against us. Can we sue? Potentially, yes. Our Ninth Circuit precedent in Ariix v. NutriSearch established that secretly rigged “independent” ratings can constitute commercial speech actionable as false advertising under the Lanham Act, and the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule now targets fake reviews directly. The details of the scheme matter — but honest competitors are not defenseless.

Contact Us
If your company makes, markets, or sells consumer products — or competes with someone who controls the marketplace, the shelf, or the pricing rules — contact Bona Law. We handle retail, e-commerce, and consumer-products competition matters nationwide from our offices in San Diego, New York, Detroit, Dallas, and Minneapolis.

Retail, E-Commerce & Consumer Products