Corporate Antitrust Compliance Programs – Increased Fines or Incentives? The Battle for Compliance Explored in 2015

A founding member of Summit Law Group, Ralph’s practice includes a unique depth of experience in complex commercial litigation, environmental matters, and corporate and business law. He has tried cases in state and federal courts involving a broad spectrum of complex issues, including: antitrust and trade regulation; patent law and licensing; environmental law (hazardous and toxic substances, clean air, clean water, and natural resource damages); product liability, commercial and contract disputes; trade secrets/non-competition; products liability (biologics, toxic torts, explosions, and product defects); class-action litigation; state and federal securities regulation and shareholder rights; breaches of contract; insurance coverage and bad faith; fraud, misrepresentation and customer protection act violations; employment agreements, noncompetition, non-solicitation and intellectual property agreements; violations of fiduciary duties; and real property taxation.

Ralph’s class action experience includes serving as lead counsel for the largest seafood processor defendant in a $1.2 billion antitrust class action (Alakayak v. All Alaskan Seafoods). He successfully obtained a unanimous jury verdict for defendants after a four-month trial. Ralph has also handled significant antitrust litigation, including multi-district and class-action litigation in the high technology, brewing, meat packing, agricultural, and forest products industries.

Helene Jaffe concentrates her practice on the transactional, counseling and litigation aspects of antitrust law with a focus on mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, single firm conduct and distribution matters.  She represents clients buying or selling companies in the US or around the world and appears before global, federal and state antitrust agencies and the federal judiciary.  She also represents clients whose pricing, promotional or marketing practices are under scrutiny or challenged by the Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission and other state and federal regulatory agencies.  She has been involved in numerous Lanham Act advertising, trademark and trade dress cases, encompassing injunctions and bench and jury trials. 

Helene develops and implements pro-active strategies—often coordinating activities in multiple jurisdictions and forums—to achieve successful legal and commercial outcomes for her clients.  She assists clients across a wide range of industries including healthcare, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, over-the-counter products, food, nutritional supplements, lodging, defense, retail and hi-tech. 

Helene was an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University School of Law, teaching a graduate course in Federal Trade Commission Law, and is a frequent speaker and author on antitrust, merger, advertising and marketing issues.  She is also a Board Member of Literacy Inc., on the Leadership Council of the International Women's Coalition, on the Executive Council of Ellevate, is a Managing Director of Golden Seeds, and is active in Barnard Alumnae affairs.

Prior to joining Brown Rudnick, Helene was head of the Antitrust Group at Proskauer and co-head of the Antitrust Group at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP