Jarod Bona Delivers Presentation Entitled “Detecting Antitrust Red Flags in Business Dealings: Avoiding Costly Pitfalls”
April 23, 2018
Jarod Bona of Bona Law PC was part of a Strafford panel that delivered a CLE webinar with an interactive Q&A that helped the audience better understand antitrust risks and opportunities in dealing with competitors, customers, and suppliers.
The focus of the panel was to teach its audience how to spot antitrust issues, so they know when to contact antitrust counsel. The speakers divided the program into four separate sections:
- When to look for antitrust risk
The speakers discussed how the antitrust laws are organized and what issues matter for an antitrust claim (i.e. horizontal v. vertical issues; per se rule v. rule of reason; market power; unilateral v. coordinated conduct). - Risks in dealing with competitors
Jarod Bona and the other speakers described the antitrust implications of fixing prices, exchanging information with competitors, customer and market allocation, group boycotts, joint ventures, associations, and mergers. - Risks in dealing with suppliers and purchasers
The speakers discussed primarily vertical antitrust issues, including resale price maintenance, non-price distribution practices, refusals to deal, predatory pricing, tying and bundling, and most-favored nation contracts. - Have you been the victim of anticompetitive conduct?
In this final section, the speakers explained how in-house and business attorneys could spot antitrust violations by competitors, customers, and suppliers and when to call an antitrust attorney. The speakers also spent some time discussing cartels and the possibility of leading a class action lawsuit against an antitrust cartel.
Unlike most courses on antitrust issues, which primarily describe how to avoid antitrust violations, this program accompanied the risk issues with a discussion of how to utilize the antitrust laws to your advantage. That is, the speakers explained how to determine when a company could bring their own antitrust action against a competitor, supplier, or customer and, in particular, how a non-antitrust attorney or in-house counsel could spot a likely violation.