David P. Chiappetta

Chiappetta's life story is an international one: The native New Yorker lived in Israel until he was 16, served in the U.S. Navy and even worked for the Australian federal government.

He's had considerable success handling antitrust cases, including one that caught the eye of two major American federal agencies.

His legal victories -- including a 2003 win against Visa for a breach-of-contract case that resulted in a $50 million settlement -- are well-known on the national level.

"Antitrust law is there to protect consumers, and to ensure they're able to get the highest quality products at the lowest prices," he said.

The National Retail Federation hired him to stop Visa and Mastercard from taking away merchants' ability to route to other networks.

As a result, Chiappetta was asked to prepare a 21-page "white paper" presented to the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Reserve, which launched an ongoing second investigation of the credit card giants.

"I've spent nearly 20 years of my career fighting Visa," he said.

Chiappetta said he was fighting for the ability of merchants to route to their debit network of choice.

"This in turn would reduce the costs to merchants, with the savings ultimately passed on to consumers," he added.

Last year, he represented electronics company HTC Corp. against Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications firm.

HTC alleged Ericsson acted in bad faith and failed to comply with its obligation to license its standard essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

The seven-day jury litigated in the Eastern District of Texas and resulted in a split verdict. HTC Corporation et al v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson et al., 18-CV00243 (E. D. Texas, filed June 1, 2018).

Part of the matter went to arbitration, though he declined to go into further details.

After graduating from the University of Washington School of Law, Chiappetta's first job was clerking for that's state attorney general.

Spending time in a different legal system, and as a prosecutor, "allowed me look at the law in completely new ways, and the ability to truly think outside the box in representing my clients," Chiappetta added.

-- Karen Weil