Members of NERA's Global Antitrust and Competition Practice joined an expert faculty at the ABA Section of Antitrust Law's three-day annual spring meeting in Washington, DC on 26-28 March 2014 for a comprehensive review of recent developments in antitrust and consumer protection law.

On Friday, 28 March, NERA President Dr. Lawrence Wu participated in a panel discussion entitled "Retreat from Trinko? Revisiting Refusals to Deal," along with Pilar Garcia of SanDisk Corporation; Trevor Soames of Shearman & Sterling; and Koren W. Wong-Ervin of the FTC. The panel, moderated by Kim Van Winkle, Antitrust Section Chief at the Texas Office of the Attorney General, discussed the potential implications a recent FTC amicus brief -- which argues that a pharmaceutical company's refusal to sell samples to generic competitors for bioequivalence testing may violate Section 2, regardless of any prior course of dealing -- will have for plaintiffs challenging refusals to deal.

Later that day, Dr. Ramsey Shehadeh, Senior Vice President and Chair of NERA's Antitrust and Competition Practice, chaired and moderated a panel session entitled "Vertical Merger Analysis: Time to Step It Up?" The panel examined the current tools for evaluating vertical mergers and whether further guidance from the agencies on enforcement standards is warranted. The panelists included F. Enrique González‐Díaz of Cleary Gottlieb; Ian John of Skadden; Mary Lehner of Freshfields; and Scott Sher of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.