Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr.

SAN FRANCISCO - Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. founded the San Francisco outpost of Berman Tabacco in 1995 with law partner Norman Berman, making it a nationwide litigation firm with a focus on antitrust and securities matters. Berman oversees the Boston office.

Earlier in his career, following the JD with honors he earned at George Washington University Law School, Tabacco spent seven years at the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, working as a senior trial attorney. "It was a terrific job. I was doing criminal price-fixing cases in Los Angeles and then I went to New York to work on a big IBM case in the early 1980s," he said.

The good times came to a close when the Reagan administration de-emphasized antitrust. "They cut the division in half. I saw the writing on the wall and I left."

This year Tabacco obtained an $82 million settlement from Ford Canada in an automobile antitrust case that was filed so long ago that parts of it are in state court. "This case is so old that we had California claims that under the law as it is today would be removed to federal court," he said. "We call them the antique auto cases."

The matter alleges that major auto manufacturers unlawfully conspired to stop the export of cheaper new Canadian-made vehicles into the U.S. for use or resale. Automobile Antitrust Cases I and II, JCCP Nos. 4298 and 4303 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed April 30, 2003); In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litigation, 2:03-md-01532 (D. Me., filed Oct. 8, 2003).

The decades of litigation involved demurrers, extensive fact and expert discovery, class certification and multiple rounds of complex summary judgment briefing -- plus two separate remands from the state Court of Appeal.

Some defendants made surprise exits. "Who would have thought when we launched this case that both GM and Chrysler would file for bankruptcy," Tabacco said. "We take a lot of risks, but that was one we didn't expect."

In a case with echoes of today's focus on high gas prices, Tabacco is lead partner for the firm and chair of the executive committee in a class action over claims that defendant companies conspired to fix and stabilize gasoline prices at artificially high levels after a February 2015 refinery explosion in Torrance. In re California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation, 3:20-cv- 03131 (N.D. Cal., filed May 6, 2020).

"This one isn't about the current squeeze, but it does show that it's not that easy to catch 'em fixing prices," Tabacco said.