Compass Lexecon Client Newsletter January 2019

“Simply the best expert experience I or the team has ever had. The client knows our views and shares them.”

We are extremely proud to report that 2018 was Compass Lexecon’s best year ever. In every one of our practice areas – from mergers to antitrust litigation, financial market issues to securities litigation and from mass torts to intellectual property matters and international arbitration proceedings – we were retained on the biggest and most important matters involving complex economic issues. And, at its core, the fundamental reason why we continue to succeed year in and year out is that Compass Lexecon has the best experts and staff in the business, as confirmed by the quote above from one of the lead lawyers on the AT&T/Time Warner merger trial.

Compass Lexecon remains the “800-pound gorilla” of competition economics firm worldwide both for our size and quality, according to Global Competition Review. In 2018, we worked on the most important mergers, such as the AT&T/Time Warner merger; the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger; the Agrium/PotashCorp merger, the Bayer/Monsanto merger, the CenturyLink/Level 3 Communications merger, as well as nearly 200 other deals. In antitrust litigation, we worked (or are working) on hundreds of price-fixing, monopolization and class action matters. In addition, in 2018, Compass Lexecon was named the Competition Economics Firm of the Year by Who’s Who Legal, an award Compass Lexecon has won every year it has been presented. Who’s Who Legal identified 42 Compass Lexecon experts from six different countries in its Who’s Who of Competition Economists. And six Compass Lexecon experts – Dennis Carlton, Neil Dryden, Miguel de la Mano, Janusz Ordover, Jonathan Orszag, Jorge Padilla – were identified as “truly outstanding practitioners” – more experts in that category than any other firm.

Our finance, general litigation and regulatory practices enjoyed similar successes. Our President, Daniel Fischel, testified in five different trials in 2018 and our clients were victorious in all five cases, on subjects ranging from the existence of an MAE in a merger context, to whether challenged investments in a university pension plan were prudent, to the proper magnitude of allowed claims in a bankruptcy proceeding. Four of these trials were bench trials and the court in each heavily relied on Professor Fischel’s testimony in reaching its result. In addition, we have continued to expand our presence and involvement in mass tort and intellectual property litigation and continued our leading role as experts in the largest securities fraud, insider trading and manipulation/spoofing cases as well as in appraisal, valuation and corporate governance matters in Delaware and elsewhere.

In the international arbitration arena, our clients won significant victories in a range of cases around the world, including a $2 billion award to ConocoPhillips in Venezuela. Based on information about the size of claims handled by expert firms, as well as the number of cases each firm is involved in, Compass Lexecon was recognized as the best international arbitration expert firm by the Global Arbitration Review. In addition, Compass Lexecon’s Manuel Abdala and Pablo Spiller were named as two of the most highly regarded international arbitration experts in the world.

Finally, we continued to add to our roster of best-in-industry experts and staff, including Professor John List, a world-renowned economist at the University of Chicago; Marc Weinstein, a professor of finance at the University of Southern California and an entertainment/media specialist; Boaz Moselle, one of the top energy experts in Europe, who has testified extensively in antitrust and international arbitration proceedings; Professor Mats Bergman, a former Chief Economist at the Swedish Competition Authority; Paul Reynolds, a leading competition expert in Europe; Sean Iyer, a top intellectual property expert; and Dan O’Brien, a former DOJ and FTC economist with particular expertise on partial ownership and vertical relationship issues. We have also continued to expand our presence globally, opening an office in Israel and adding significantly to our teams in Europe, Asia and the United States.

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