Christopher L. Lebsock

Lebsock primarily represents antitrust plaintiffs and he is co-lead counsel in several important class actions.

In September, he argued before an en banc panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that he said could produce “a seminal decision for how antitrust lawyers think about class certification.” He represents food distributors suing canned tuna companies for fixing prices, which they have admitted doing.

The tricky issue is whether the trial court should have found that only a “de minimis” portion of potential class members were uninjured by the price fixing before it certified the class, as a three-judge appellate panel held. Lebsock argued no such finding is required. Olean Wholesale Grocery Co-op Inc v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, 19-56514 (9th Cir., filed Aug. 14, 2019).

He is set to go to trial in March on behalf of consumers in a class action against the two largest makers of contact lenses, Johnson & Johnson and Alcon Vision, over allegedly conspiring to set minimum prices with retailers. Bausch & Lomb and other defendants have already settled for more than $40 million. In re: Disposable Contact Lens Antitrust Litigation, 3:15-md-02626 (M.D. Fla., filed June 10, 2015).

He goes to trial in May in another important antitrust case, but it is an arbitration rather than a class action and the result might end up raising prices for consumers who use credit or debit cards. He represents a company suing American Express that objects to the fees banks and card companies take off the top of sales. Lebsock’s client and other retailers want the right to add surcharges when consumers use high-fee cards, such as those that award points or miles. The goal is to “align consumers’ choice to use a card with the consequences of doing that,” he said.

In other cases, he represents some casinos suing the company that owns the only two manufacturers of automatic card shufflers for being a monopoly. And last month, he sued McDonald’s over a data breach affecting people who used the company’s South Korean delivery service, McDelivery.

He and his firm pride themselves on their international reach. “We had this vision that we could do antitrust cases not just in the United States but all over the world,” he said. The firm has grown from 12 partners to about 150. “We actually have more lawyers and more offices in Europe than we have in the United States.”

— Don DeBenedictis