Rob’s Washington, DC-based competition and trade regulation practice involves counseling on the competitive implications of business strategies, regulatory matters, and litigation. He defends clients in complex litigation and in merger and regulatory reviews by agencies such as the US Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Rob’s clients include media and telecommunications companies, health systems and providers, national retailers, trade associations, life sciences companies, and technology companies.

Rob specializes in clearly explaining strategic risks and their relative values in order to help senior executives make informed decisions. He provides advice to clients from across the country and around the world in high-profile matters including:

Complex litigation (class action and otherwise)
Antitrust issues in mergers and acquisitions / second requests
Strategic business planning and risk management
Regulatory issues arising from foreign investments in US businesses (particularly Chinese investment)
Federal and state regulatory investigations
Policy advocacy and notice-and-comment rulemaking
Appellate review of agency action
Trade association counseling
Privacy and data security
Consumer protection and unfair/deceptive trade practices

Rob represents clients in numerous markets, including:

Media content and distribution
Wireless communications
Health care providers and services
Life sciences
Technology
Retail and consumer products
Trade associations and nonprofits

He has written and spoken widely on litigation risk management and cost containment and on issues faced by businesses when they interact with federal and state enforcers and administrative agencies.

Rob is an active supporter of the firm’s pro bono program, providing representation to numerous indigent clients before the Social Security Administration and in local family and domestic relations courts. He has provided corporate and business planning advice to the National Network to End Domestic Violence and other nonprofit clients. He is also an active supporter of the firm’s mentoring and sponsorship program.

Prior to his career in the law, Rob was an on-air radio personality and station production director in Lexington, Kentucky.

Co-lead trial counsel in the 2020 jury trial of a nationwide class action alleging global price fixing in sales of capacitors.
Lead US antitrust counsel for Qiagen N.V. in its $11 billion sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific, announced in March 2020.
Successfully represented a global contract manufacturer before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in its 2020 acquisition by a Chinese investor.
Serves as ongoing antitrust counsel to one of the nation’s largest and most respected integrated physician/hospital provider network on matters including mergers, affiliations, investigations, and litigation.
Represented the nation’s premier retail pharmacy chain in its $27 billion industry-transforming acquisition of a “big three” pharmacy benefits manager.
Serves as ongoing antitrust counsel to several of the world’s leading genetic and molecular diagnostic test developers and providers.
Lead counsel for three separate cable operators in sprawling multidistrict litigation involving more than 30 separate suits filed around the country relating to the alleged tying of cable set-top boxes to certain cable services.
Serves as ongoing antitrust counsel to one of the world’s largest and most recognizable brands in health care equipment and technology.
Serves as ongoing antitrust, regulatory, and litigation counsel to several of the nation’s leading cable, media, and wireless telecommunications companies and trade associations.
Provides ongoing antitrust and foreign investment counsel to dozens of early-stage companies in biotech, health care, green energy, and high-tech manufacturing.

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Investment Fund Violates “Investment-Only” HSR Exemption

August 26, 2015 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Dionne Lomax, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed this week in federal court a proposed settlement to charges that an investment fund violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, 15 U.S.C. § 18a (“HSR Act” or “Act”) by improperly relying on the “investment-only” exemption.

March 31, 2015 | Alert | By Robert Kidwell, Rich Gervase

Today, as we previewed here, the US Supreme Court analyzed the question of whether patent holders should be allowed to contract for royalty payments that continue to accrue after the expiration of the subject patent.

March 30, 2015 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Dionne Lomax, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short

The waves of change affecting health care providers include reimbursement and funding developments, the impact of the Affordable Care Act, technological and medical advances, provider network design transformations imposed by payors — and antitrust.

February 11, 2015 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Dionne Lomax, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short

In a much anticipated appellate health care antitrust decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s finding that a consummated hospital-physician group merger violated Section 7 of the Clayton Act, despite the provider-defendants’ assertion of an efficiencies defense based on integrated care and risk-based reimbursement.

October 6, 2014 | Advisory | By Bruce Sokler, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short, Helen Kim

The Tenth Circuit recently affirmed both class certification and one of the largest verdicts issued in the U.S. this year, denying Dow Chemical Company’s (“Dow”) appeal in a price fixing case related to polyurethane products.

September 12, 2014 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Robert Kidwell

In recent years, antitrust criminal enforcement efforts have increased around the world. These efforts focus mainly on cartels — which the Supreme Court calls “the supreme evil of antitrust” — that conspire to fix prices, rig bids, or allocate markets.

August 11, 2014 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Dionne Lomax, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short

On August 5, 2014, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims of monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act brought by a manufacturer of surgical bone mills against a competitor.

January 17, 2014 | Alert | By Bruce Sokler, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short, Helen Kim

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 17, 2014 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act).

February 25, 2013 | Alert | By Robert Kidwell

In AT&T Mobility LLC v. AU Optronics Corp., Ninth Circuit Case No. 11-16188 (Feb. 14, 2013), the Ninth Circuit held that California’s antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, could apply to a price fixing conspiracy of LCD panels even though purchases of the price-fixed goods all occurred outside California.

February 21, 2013 | Advisory | By Bruce Sokler, Robert Kidwell, Farrah Short

On February 19, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that state-action immunity does not protect a state-created hospital authority from antitrust scrutiny over a proposed hospital merger where the anticompetitive effect of such merger was not a “foreseeable result” authorized by the state. FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System, Inc., 568 U.S. ___ (2013).