Downey Law in the News

At the beginning of the new ABA year on August 1, 2017, Alicia Downey will start her first term as co-chair of the Compliance and Ethics Committee of the Section of Antitrust Law. The Committee serves as a resource and network for discussing, evaluating and analyzing compliance and ethics issues in the field of antitrust. At the same time, Alicia will continue serving as the Business Law Section’s Liaison to the Section of Antitrust Law, and as vice chair of the Antitrust Law Committee of the Business Law Section.

In an April 30, 2017 subscribers-only article by Banker & Tradesman staff reporter Jim Morrison, Alicia Downey responded to questions about the extent to which antitrust law might constrain the growth of companies such as Realogy, which owns a large number of branded residential real estate brokerage firms. Alicia noted, “There is an antitrust risk when a company holding a monopoly or a large market share is somehow able to exploit that position to keep prices high, coerce customers to deal only with them, or arrange things that keeps competitors out by unfair means, such as false advertising, contracts that make it unduly difficult or expensive to switch service providers, or by using things like over-restrictive non-competes.”

The ABA Section of Antitrust law recently held its annual Spring Meeting, which was attended by nearly 3,000 antitrust and consumer protection practitioners, government enforcers, academics and economists. On the first day of the meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 29, 2017, Alicia moderated a lively panel discussion of recent trends in price discrimination litigation in the United States by private parties invoking the Robinson-Patman Act.

Downey Law officially opened for business exactly four years ago, in January 2013. Thanks to supportive clients, colleagues, family and friends, the past four years have been both professionally and personally rewarding. I learn something new everyday and look forward to seeing what the future will bring.