The firm will concentrate on antitrust law breaches like unfair competition and price discrimination
Former US Federal Trade Commission lawyers Catherine Simonsen, Shaoul Sussman and Nicolas Stebinger have launched New York-based plaintiffs law firm Simonsen Sussman with ex-US attorney for Kansas Kate Brubacher, reported Reuters.
The firm will focus on antitrust law breaches like unfair competition and price discrimination. It claimed that underutilized laws and institutional constraints at federal agencies had resulted in antitrust enforcement "gaps."
Simonsen Sussman attorneys highlighted the Robinson-Patman Act, which prevents sellers from offering pricing deals to only certain buyers, as an example of an existing but underutilized law that could address supposed wrongdoing. Last month, the FTC had abandoned a price discrimination case against PepsiCo in which the commission claimed that the soft drink manufacturer's practices boosted consumer prices by favoring Walmart over other retailers.
California's unfair competition law was another example presented by the firm - a federal judge determined that while Apple did not breach federal antitrust law in its highly publicized legal fight with Epic Games, the company breached a state provision.
"We’ve seen courts starting to understand that corporate interests have gone too far," Simonsen said in a statement to Reuters.
Simonsen Sussman's establishment is a response to a recent uptick in private antitrust litigation and to FTC staff cuts under the current US administration. Simonsen, Sussman, and Stebinger all held senior positions at the FTC prior to their exits.
Per LinkedIn, Simonsen, who is a senior legal fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, worked with the FTC's Office of Policy Planning. Sussman was an associate director at the FTC, and Stebinger was deputy chief of the criminal liaison unit.
Last month, FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson revealed the commission's intent to cut around 10 percent of staff, leaving it with its lowest headcount in a decade (1,221 full-time employees). As of May, 94 employees left the FTC.
