Antitrust Treatment of Loyalty Discounts in Europe and the U.S.

Bill Michael is a partner in the Litigation Department at Paul, Weiss. Bill has extensive experience in antitrust litigation, including both civil and criminal government investigations, as well as other complex commercial litigation and appellate matters.

Bill has significant experience representing companies in various antitrust litigations and investigations.  He has represented clients in cases involving competitor allegations of monopolization, exclusive dealing, tying and bundled discounting, as well as in purchaser class actions and in bid-rigging investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice. Bill previously served as Chair of the Editorial Board of The Antitrust Practitioner, a publication of the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law Civil Practice and Procedure Committee. Prior to joining Paul, Weiss, Bill was a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on civil merger and non-merger investigations in the telecommunications and media industries. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Barrington D. Parker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Bill received his B.A. from Columbia University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.  

Simon is head of King & Wood Mallesons’ EU, Competition & Regulatory Department in Europe.  He is recognized as a ‘Leading Lawyer’ in Chambers, a ‘legal expert’ in Legal 500 and features in the Guide to the World’s Leading Competition and Anti-Trust Lawyers.

Although based in London, Simon has spent extensive periods in Brussels and, as a result, has close contacts with the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.

For over 30 years, Simon has advised on contentious and non-contentious  competition law and international trade and customs including bringing, defending and settling all types of competition disputes, dominance, pricing, discounts, promotions, standard setting, essential facilities,  refusals to supply, information exchange, trade associations cartels, dawn raids, compliance programmes, parallel trade, state aid, public procurement and the application of competition law to a wide range of commercial agreements.

He regularly advises on mergers under UK and EU law, acting for either one of the  merging parties or third parties. Through this latter work, he has advised on a very high proportion of the largest deals.

Brian Sher is a partner with Nabarro LLP with 20 years’ experience of EU and UK competition law.  His practice spans EU and UK merger control, joint ventures, distribution strategy, pricing and dominance issues, compliance advice, competition litigation, state aid and public procurement.  He represents clients before the UK and EU competition authorities and courts in merger investigations, cartel and conduct cases and market / sector inquiries.  He is particularly well known as one of the leading thinkers on abuse of dominance matters in the EU and UK and advises international corporates extensively in this area including on a number of on-going cases.  Brian is an active member of the Joint Working Party of the Bars and Law Societies of the UK on Competition Law and has two years’ prior business analysis training with the management consultancy McKinsey & Co.  He is an annual visiting lecturer on the Kings College, London competition LLM. He frequently chairs or speaks at conferences and has published widely on competition law.  He is listed as a leading adviser in Chambers & Partners.

Sean Durkin specializes in antitrust economics, damage analysis, econometrics, microeconomics, and international economics. Dr. Durkin has served as a testifying expert on damages and liability in class action, antitrust, patent, and unfair competition cases and has testified before the International Trade Commission and the Illinois Commerce Commission. He has extensive consulting experience on both competitor and class action cases involving a wide range of antitrust issues, including collusion, bundling/tying, exclusive dealing, and predatory pricing. He has worked on cases involving price fixing, quantity restrictions, and non-compete agreements. Dr. Durkin has consulted on a variety of merger cases for government agencies in the US and Canada and also for merging parties in both horizontal and vertical mergers. He has also consulted for a major retailer examining retail expenditures across different target groups and a trade association estimating the impact of proposed changes in EPA regulations. Dr. Durkin is a lecturer at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Dr. Durkin was recognized with a 2015 Antitrust Writing Award for Best Economics Article in the Business Articles category for his publication, “The Discount Attribution Test and the Competitive Effects of Loyalty Discounts."