John S. Gibson

Gibson focuses on antitrust litigation as a DLA Piper partner in its litigation and regulatory practice group. He has a quarter century’s worth of experience representing health care and high-tech clients plus professional sports teams. He moved to the firm in 2020 from Crowell & Moring LLP, where he was a member of the management board. In 2019, he was named “Attorney of the Year” by the Thurgood Marshall Bar Association.

“I loved my time at Crowell, but DLA Piper’s incredible global platform means greater access to Fortune 50 clients so that I can bring my skill set to pharmaceutical and technology companies that are at the forefront of innovation and in the crosshairs of antitrust enforcement,” he said.

Gibson studied economics at Harvard University and law at the University of Michigan Law School. But starting out in practice, he said he had no antitrust background. Still, the house counsel at a client for whom he’d done successful commercial litigation asked him to defend an antitrust suit. “I was a new partner and this was a big opportunity,” he said. “I got lucky and won on summary judgment. And I handled the case for less than half the budget, so I made my entry into the antitrust field with a big splash.”

Another highlight came some years later when he successfully crossed swords in the courtroom with the late antitrust legend Maxwell M. Blecher in spinoff antitrust litigation involving the LA Clippers’ split with then-owner Donald T. Sterling. Gibson represented the Clippers. “Max was wonderful, and he was viewed as the top plaintiffs’ antitrust lawyer around. But the facts were the facts, and I won.”

He avoids naming recent and current clients. He is defending a branded-pharmaceutical company in an international arbitration involving antitrust and breach of contract claims over patent-licensing disputes upon generic entry. The hearing on the matter is set for early 2022.

For a Silicon Valley technology company, Gibson successfully argued a motion for the transfer of multiple potential class actions filed around the U.S. to the Northern District.

He won summary judgment for a major distributor of medical and surgical supplies in federal antitrust litigation over pricing policies brought by a competitor and a national potential class of hospital customers.

In that case, Gibson said, “the competitor argued that it should have had a larger market share because it had a superior business model, but the hospitals found my client’s model more valuable as we showed at the summary judgment hearing.”

Gibson added, “My clients tend to be aggressive apex competitors who succeed by offering superior business acumen and innovation, and who don’t need to cheat or collude to do so.”

--John Roemer