{"id":29,"date":"2007-01-16T21:30:51","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T21:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/london-lawsuit-laboratory\/"},"modified":"2007-01-16T21:30:51","modified_gmt":"2007-01-16T21:30:51","slug":"london-lawsuit-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/london-lawsuit-laboratory\/","title":{"rendered":"London: ‘lawsuit laboratory’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll PLLC<\/a>‘s London office, as WV&Z reported on in a previous post<\/a>, remains in the news (though they haven’t updated their locations<\/a> themselves yet.) In line with the FT’s earlier focus on the firm’s anti-trust practice, today the Wall Street Journal<\/a> (on the front page, no less; to access online, subscription required) reports on the move and what the move could mean for London in terms of the UK taking on an examplary role in using private litigation to enforce anti-trust legislation in the European Union. (Also, see the WSJ Law Blog<\/a> on this topic earlier.) It notes too that Howrey LLP<\/a>, which already has an office here, is hiring competition partners as well.<\/p>\n

Philip Collins, formerly a competition partner with Lovells<\/a> and counsel with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP<\/a> and currently Chairman of the Office of Fair Trading<\/a>, the UK’s competition enforcement agency, is cautiously optimistic: “There’s a lot that can be learned from the American system. […] We must take a measured approach.”<\/p>\n

The article mentions the US case against a vitamins cartel, in which among others Cohen Milstein acted as counsel, as an example of a case that could have been beneficial to potential plaintiffs outside the US, but who were not included in the settlement. (See Cohen Milstein’s Vitamins Antitrust Litigation<\/a> section on its website and for example the US Department of Justice pamphlet ‘Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer’<\/a> for more.)<\/p>\n

What the article doesn’t<\/em> mention is that Cohen Milstein apparently has already had a hand in English and EC proceedings regarding the vitamins cartel, having “worked extensively” with City firm Irwin Mitchell<\/a>, according to the latter’s April 2006 submission<\/a> in response to the European Commission’s Anti-trust Green Paper<\/a>. As it says there (submission p.1), Irwin Mitchell represents a number of claimants in the English courts in “their claims concerning the operation of the Vitamins <\/em>cartel.” (Note it there also endorses Cohen Milstein’s own Green Paper response submission<\/a>.) Members of that cartel have been fined by the European Commission in the case also known as Re Vitamins Cartel<\/em><\/a>, now this firm is claiming for compensation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Journal concludes with a quote from a representative of the US Chamber of Commerce affiliated Institute for Legal Reform<\/a>. No points for guessing its position and views on the plaintiffs’ bar. (But here are two clues: one<\/a>, two<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Today’s latest reporting aside, WV&Z dug up two earlier articles – published in Forbes<\/a> and in TheLawyer<\/a> – on Cohen Milstein’s Michael D. Hausfeld<\/a>‘s ambitions outside the US. A quote:<\/p>\n

\n

“I wish I had no opportunity. […] I only have an opportunity if someone has committed a mass wrong. We’re answering a need in a void. There’s a void in the sense that there aren’t many lawyers that practise at our level and undertake the cases that we do.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll PLLC‘s London office, as WV&Z reported on in a previous post, remains in the news (though they haven’t updated their locations themselves yet.) In line with the FT’s earlier focus on the firm’s anti-trust practice, today the Wall Street Journal (on the front page, no less; to access online, subscription […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kranenburgesq.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}