Timothy W. Bergin

Tim Bergin has more than 30 years of trial and appellate litigation experience in a wide variety of federal regulatory and commercial subject areas, including antitrust, securities, energy, telecommunications, intellectual property, and bankruptcy, among others.

Mr. Bergin has longstanding experience providing antitrust counseling, obtaining antitrust clearance for corporate mergers and acquisitions, and litigating antitrust cases.  He has counseled many business clients on a range of issues under federal and state antitrust law, involving intellectual property licensing, joint ventures, pricing (e.g., vertical agreements, data exchange, price discrimination, bid coordination), market division, tied sales (bundling), exclusive dealing, refusal to deal, regulatory immunity, and other antitrust compliance matters. Mr. Bergin has substantial experience navigating regulations pertaining to antitrust pre-clearance for mergers and acquisitions subject to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, and handling related substantive and remedial issues.  His antitrust litigation experience includes complex multidistrict litigation spanning nearly twenty years, among diverse other matters on behalf of antitrust plaintiffs or defendants.

Mr. Bergin’s practice also extends to other federal regulatory and commercial litigation matters, as well as arbitration.  He has substantial experience representing securities brokers subject to disciplinary proceedings or remedial claims under federal or state securities laws or regulations.  He also has significant experience in ratemaking proceedings under the Natural Gas Act, postal rate and classification proceedings, and various other federal regulatory matters. Mr. Bergin’s litigation experience also includes a range of contract, intellectual property, and bankruptcy matters.

Representative Experience

Antitrust Matters

• Provided antitrust counseling for many clients regarding various business agreements, transactions, and practices, hypothetical or otherwise, encompassing an extensive range of issues under federal and state antitrust law.
• Obtained antitrust clearance for several corporate acquisitions, most recently in petroleum products and health care fields, resolving issues through discussions with federal antitrust enforcement agencies (the U.S. Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission).
• Experience pursuing antitrust clearance for corporate acquisitions subject to enhanced scrutiny by antitrust enforcement agency, involving written and oral advocacy and partial-divestiture (spin-off) conditions to resolve antitrust concerns.
• Key role in nearly all aspects of representing U.S. Steel and defending its railroad subsidiary in multidistrict iron ore antitrust litigation encompassing 20 cases over 20 years, including a criminal case, a four-week civil jury trial, and five published appellate opinions in three federal circuits and one state court, reflecting mixed success (circuit split) opposing federal and state claims of railroad conspiracy to exclude competitors.
• Successful representation of national medical association in a landmark antitrust tying case resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision substantially tracking the association’s amicus brief on behalf of plaintiff, drafted by Mr. Bergin.
• Successful defense of electric utility in three-week jury trial of competitor claims of unlawful monopolization under federal antitrust law; drafted extensive trial briefs as member of three-attorney trial team.
• Successful defense of national medical association in week-long civil bench trial of U.S. Justice Department’s claim of price-fixing; member of three-attorney trial team.
• Obtained summary judgment, affirmed on appeal, dismissing art market boycott claims under federal antitrust law.
• Obtained summary judgment dismissing federal antitrust claim of conspiracy to exclude competitor through unfounded patent litigation.
• Key role in obtaining ruling upholding viability of monopolization claims against natural gas pipeline under federal antitrust law.

Other Matters

• Successful representation of securities brokers subject to various (i) regulatory disciplinary proceedings for violation of federal or state securities laws or related regulations of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or Securities and Exchange Commission, (ii) remedial claims under the Securities Exchange Act in federal court, or (iii) arbitration claims under FINRA rules.
• Key role in successful representation of broad consortium of shippers in two successive natural gas pipeline rate cases before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, each largely resolved in favor of shipper clients after four weeks of hearings.
• Lead counsel for McGraw-Hill, then-publisher of Business Week and numerous other periodicals, in a series of ten-month, highly-contested postal rate and classification hearings before the Postal Regulatory Commission, resulting in favorable rates for periodicals.
• Lead counsel for the National Exchange Carrier Association, successfully defending access charge tariffs it filed with the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of its telephone company members against challenges in U.S. district courts and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where Mr. Bergin presented oral argument on behalf of NECA on two occasions.
• Obtained complete relief for major Brazilian company from national security ban, imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security for violating its export controls on sensitive U.S. technology, barring any trading with the company worldwide in any products containing any U.S. components or technology.
• Contract-related litigation: obtained favorable decision by U.S. Court of Appeals in California (presented oral argument) on seven-figure contract claim by Brazilian airline client against aircraft leasing company, leading to favorable settlement; led successful government contract bid protest; represented defendant in contract and copyright litigation (ultimately settled) between software developers who had been co- entrepreneurs; obtained favorable settlement on client’s disability insurance claim based on cutting-edge expert testimony, held admissible; first-chair ten-week jury trial in state court defending construction lender, favorably settled pre-verdict.
• Trademark and domain name (cyber-squatting) litigation in defense of Irish company/trademark licensee; obtained partial summary judgment for client.
• Bankruptcy matters: obtained decision by U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Penn Central bankruptcy decree did not bar contribution/indemnity claims against reorganized company based on pre-bankruptcy conduct by its predecessor; developed bankruptcy claims against third parties on behalf of court-appointed Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Enron Corporation; obtained full recovery from bankruptcy trustee on creditor’s contested six-figure claim based on attorney’s lien.