Sep. 13, 2012
Joseph M. Alioto, Jr.
See more on Joseph M. Alioto, Jr.Alioto Law Firm San Francisco Litigation Specialty: Antitrust
Alioto likes to keep corporate America on its toes as a plaintiffs' attorney involved in high-impact antitrust class actions.
He recently helped settle a case as co-lead counsel against some of the world's leading electronics suppliers - including Japan-based Toshiba Corp. and South Korea-based LG Display Co. Ltd. - which were accused of conspiring to fix the prices of thin-film-transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT LCD) sold to indirect purchasers, or people who bought the screens in consumer products. In Re: TFT-LCD (Flat Panel) Antitrust Litigation, 07-MD-1827 (N.D. Cal., filed April 20, 2007).
The indirect purchaser case, which settled with its last defendant in July, netted more than $1 billion for the plaintiffs, putting the settlement among the largest in antitrust suits.
Alioto said he takes on cases like TFT LCD because consumers "are being robbed and they don't know it." He has tried a broad range of cases - including price fixing, group boycotts and attempts to monopolize - because he said antitrust violators are "high-class pickpockets."
"If the government regulates an industry and you don't like it, you throw out [the government]," he said. "But if a private entity interferes with the market by price fixing, there's nothing you can do about it."
Alioto represents 11 California pharmacies in a lawsuit against Pfizer Inc. and generic drugmaker Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc., which he accused last year of fixing prices of cholesterol medication Lipitor. It is America's best-selling drug, bringing in more than $1 billion a month for Pfizer, he said.
"The government has done nothing about it," he said.
Alioto has antitrust in his blood. His father worked for the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department in 1941 and later opened an antitrust practice, which Alioto joined after receiving his law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1968. He now has a son who is a special assistant for the U.S. Department of Justice.
- SAUL SUGARMAN
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