Compass Lexecon Client Newsletter July 2016

"The thing I like most about Compass Lexecon is that it is a constant reminder, amidst all the marketing and branding focus and the staggering amount of money and time devoted to it, that unalloyed excellence still matters, and still sells. You can post my comment on your website."

The above quote graciously forwarded by one of our clients exemplifies the type of firm we aspire to be every day. We pride ourselves on the high quality of our work. We spend virtually no time or resources on marketing; we simply try to report on our previous year's experiences and successes. And the past year was no different than previous ones in terms of the magnitude and importance of the matters on which we were retained, the results our clients achieved, and the quality of the experts and staff we attracted.

We continue to be hired on the biggest, most complex cases and mergers around the globe. For example, we worked (or are working) on the most important mergers: Aetna/Humana; Sysco/US Foods; Orbitz/Expedia; Dell/EMC; AT&T/DIRECTV; Siemens/Dresser-Rand; and BT/EE. In antitrust litigation, we worked (or are working) on a wide variety of major price-fixing and class action matters, such as In re Wellbutrin XL Antitrust Litigation, the Southeastern Milk Antitrust Litigation, and we continue to be involved in LCD and CRT litigation. In addition, in early 2016, Compass Lexecon was named the Competition Economist Firm of the Year by Who's Who Legal; Compass Lexecon has won that award every year it has been presented.Who's Who Legal identified 30 Compass Lexecon experts from seven different countries in its Who's Who of Competition Economists, including naming Janusz Ordover as Competition Economist of the Year. We were excited that one of our rising stars – Neil Dryden – was named the 2016 Economist of the Year by Global Competition Review for his work on the Ball/Rexam and BT/EE mergers.

Our finance, general litigation, and regulatory practices enjoyed similar successes. To name just a few examples, we worked for Hewlett Packard in its breach of contract case against Oracle where HP prevailed and was awarded $3 billion in damages; for the United States Department of Justice in successfully responding to Hank Greenberg's $40 billion damage claim allegedly resulting from the government rescue of AIG; for iHeart and other clients in obtaining a successful outcome in an industry-wide ratemaking proceeding before the Copyright Royalty Board; for Citigroup, Bank of New York Mellon, and other bank trustees in getting multi-billion dollar RMBS settlements approved; for Best Buy and other defendants in defeating class certification; for MetLife in getting its designation as a "Systemically Important Financial Institution" removed; and for Steven Cohen in successfully resolving his Securities and Exchange Commission administrative proceeding. We also have been heavily involved in complex litigation and settlement proceedings related to claims brought against British Petroleum, General Motors, Volkswagen, and others for various alleged product defects, misrepresentations, and environmental harm claims. In addition, we've expanded our presence and involvement in intellectual property litigation and continued our dominant 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 including investments in the Buenos Aires water concession, Venezuela's expropriation of a metallurgical complex, and most significantly, in the $1.4 billion award rendered for Claimants in the expropriation of a gold mine in Venezuela. In a survey of general counsel and private practice lawyers globally, 15 experts from Compass Lexecon – from three continents – were listed among the top economic experts in the world. People on our international arbitration team were described as having "great gravitas," "one of the very best," a "big name," a "pre-eminent figure," and "hugely impressive."

We also continued to add to our roster of world-renowned experts. We added Damien Neven, a former Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission and a Professor of Economics at The Graduate Institute, Geneva; Miguel de la Mano, the former Head of Economic Analysis of Financial Markets at the European Commission; Philip Haile, the Ford Foundation Professor of Economics at Yale University and a leading industrial organization economist; Tomas Philipson, the Daniel Levin Chair of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and a world-renowned pharmaceutical and healthcare expert; Derek Ritzmann, the former Chief Economist at the Competition Commission of Hong Kong who has opened our new Hong Kong office expanding our geographical presence to the Far East; Elizabeth Wang, an expert on competition economics issues in China; Wei Jiang, the Arthur F. Burns Professor of Free and Competitive Enterprise in the Finance and Economics Division at Columbia Business School and a leading hedge fund activism and corporate governance expert; and Thomas Varner, a leading expert in intellectual property.

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