Biography: Competition

Robert E Cooper is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Los Angeles office. A member of the firm's litigation department, Mr Cooper has extensive experience in antitrust and business tort litigation.

Mr Cooper has served as lead trial counsel in scores of business trials, including many major antitrust cases. Mr Cooper achieved three successive trial victories for a major pharmaceuticals manufacturer in the antibiotics antitrust litigation. He successfully defended American Airlines in three major antitrust cases. In the first case, plaintiffs sought in excess of $350 million, alleging monopolisation of computerised reservation services. A three-month jury trial resulted in a jury verdict for the airline. In the second, Mr Cooper successfully defended American Airlines against charges of predatory pricing in a jury trial in which plaintiffs sought treble damages exceeding $3 billion. More recently, Mr Cooper won summary judgment for the airline in an action instituted by the United States Department of Justice, alleging monopolisation of American's Dallas-Fort Worth hub.

Mr Cooper also achieved two jury victories for Hewlett-Packard: the first involved allegations that HP monopolised the sale of replacement cartridges for its inkjet printers, and the most recent involved allegations of deceptive trade practices in the sale of printers. Other clients Mr Cooper has served as trial counsel include Sempra Energy, Intel, Ticketmaster, Honeywell, Northrop, Allergan, and Callaway Golf Company. At present, Mr Cooper is representing HP in litigation against Oracle involving mission-critical computers.

Mr Cooper received his bachelor of arts degree with distinction from Northwestern University. He earned his law degree from Yale University, where he was elected to the order of the coif and as article and book review editor of the Yale Law Journal. Mr Cooper is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and has been named the Antitrust Lawyer of the Year by the antitrust and unfair competition section of the State Bar of California. He is a frequent lecturer on the antitrust laws and trial of complex litigation.