Elai Katz

PARTNER

Elai's practice focuses principally on a wide range of antitrust law matters, including mergers and acquisitions, litigation, counseling, and government investigations. He also has significant experience in intellectual property counseling and litigation as well as general commercial litigation.

Elai has successfully guided a broad range of transactions through the antitrust regulatory review process in the United States and abroad. He has represented many types of buyers and sellers, including private equity funds, insurance companies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, automotive component makers, steel suppliers, online retailers and others. Elai has a particularly strong record in obtaining quick and positive resolutions during the early phases of merger reviews and is particularly attuned to the role global antitrust review plays in negotiating and completing mergers and acquisitions.

Elai has represented clients in the financial, publishing, music, chemical and food industries in a variety of antitrust litigation matters, including complex class actions alleging price fixing and monopolization, as well as disputes involving distribution arrangements and price discrimination. He regularly advises clients on the formation of joint ventures, development of distribution and marketing arrangements and pricing policies, participation in trade association activities and interaction with competitors.

Selected M & A Matters:

• Representation of Peter Brant (of White Birch Paper Company, the second largest producer of newsprint in North America) in the $350 million acquisition of SP Newsprint.
• Successfully defending a waste removal and disposal company in an antitrust challenge to its acquisition of two significant rivals.
• Persuading the Department of Justice to close a major investigation of a client's completed acquisition of a principal rival (a cooling technology and engineering firm).
• Successfully negotiating a consent decree with FTC to enable a client to sell a subsidiary to a competitor in the defense and aerospace industry.
• Representation of Sequa Corporation in its $2.4 billion acquisition by The Carlyle Group before U.S. and E.U. antitrust authorities.
• Representation of Metaldyne in its $1.2 billion acquisition by Asahi Tec before U.S. and foreign antitrust authorities.
• Representation of Engelhard Corporation in its $4.5 billion acquisition by BASF before U.S. and foreign antitrust authorities.
• Representing Sola International in its $1.2 billion merger with Carl Zeiss, and successfully obtaining approval from antitrust authorities in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Switzerland.
• Representing a music label in formation and modification of a research and development joint venture with a competitor.
  

Selected Litigation Matters:

• Defending an underwriter of IPOs in a price-fixing lawsuit brought by two classes of plaintiffs against over 20 defendants, in a complex case involving analyses of antitrust suits in regulated industries, price fixing allegations based on parallel pricing and class certification.
• Defended 3M against a monopolization complaint in Nicsand v. 3M before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The complaint was dismissed, en banc, in a 10-4 vote.
• Defending a music company in price fixing and resale price maintenance class actions.
• Successfully defending a magazine publisher from claims of a conspiracy to fix prices of magazine subscriptions and obtaining settlement with no money damages to the purported class.
• Representing a drug company in a monopolization class action.
• Successfully represented NY1 News in a copyright dispute, defeating a challenge to the broadcast of a video of the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

Elai writes a monthly column in The New York Law Journal reporting and commenting on Antitrust Law developments in the U.S. and overseas. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association's Antitrust Law Section and a member of the M&A Committee of the ABA's Antitrust Law Section.

Elai writes and speaks frequently on antitrust topics. He is the author of a chapter on Joint Ventures in the 2007 Annual Review of Antitrust Law Developments (one of the leading antitrust treatises). On January 31, 2008, he moderated a panel on Resale Price Maintenance - Post-Leegin at the 2008 Antitrust Law Section Symposium, part of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association. Elai was also one of the two keynote speakers to deliver the Annual Review of Antitrust Developments at the 2006 Antitrust Law Section Symposium.