Roxane A. Polidora

Polidora is the firm-wide leader of Pillsbury's antitrust and competition practice and the managing partner in San Francisco. She's been at the firm since she left law school more than 30 years ago. Now, she's working on reopening the Embarcadero Center office following the coronavirus closure.

"When I do go in to the office I feel so much more productive," she said in mid-June. "We are all following the shelter-in-place directives, and we have been coming in only for specific tasks. Now, figuring out with my colleagues how to reopen is like herding cats."

Polidora represents client Kemet Corp., a Florida-based maker of electronic components that is a defendant in a major antitrust class action over price-fixing allegations. The complaints allege that beginning in 2002 manufacturers in the field agreed to fix prices for aluminum, film and titanium capacitors. After the suits were filed in 2014, several Japan-based defendants have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, have been sentenced and ordered to pay criminal fines. U.S. District Judge James Donato of San Francisco granted class certification in 2018.

"We aggressively litigated the case, including massive discovery," Polidora said. "There were extensive motions and mock trial workups." Then, in November 2019, another company moved to acquire Kemet. "Through a mediation and one on one negotiations with plaintiffs' counsel we were able to successfully settle the case at an amount that was lower than all the other co-defendant settlements, based on respective volume of commerce at issue." She added that the plaintiffs are seeking approximately $1.5 billion, after trebling the damages at issue. "Kemet's class settlement is pending before the court." In re: Capacitors Antitrust Litigation, 17-md-02801 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 5, 2017).

Earlier in the case, Kemet acquired another of the defendants, NEC Tokin Corp. of Japan, and its American subsidiary. Polidora's handling of the matter for Kemet led Tokin to replace its existing counsel and retain Pillsbury. At that time, Tokin had already pleaded guilty in the criminal case and settled with the civil plaintiffs. Polidora and the Pillsbury team handled Tokin's settlement obligations to cooperate with the civil plaintiffs at trial. "We prepared Tokin witnesses to testify at the jury trial which began on March 3, 2020--until the trial was continued due to the coronavirus closures." In early June Donato declared a mistrial and announced plans to reschedule the trial with a new jury later this year.

Polidora represents the same clients in similar cases over the electronic components known as resistors and inductors. "We got Kemet out of the resisters cases very quickly," she said. "Don't underestimate the importance of good relationships with plaintiffs' counsel," she said. "Lawyers grow to trust certain of their opposing counsel, and it helps."

-- John Roemer