Biography: Competition

J Mark Gidley is head of White & Case's global antitrust group, an internationally recognised practice ranked in 16 jurisdictions worldwide. His practice focuses on mergers, acquisitions, and cartel cases, typically with a transnational focus.

Mr Gidley served in antitrust-related positions within the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1993. From 1992 to 1993, he served as acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division with responsibility for all of the division's enforcement efforts. He brought the largest antitrust forfeiture action in US history in the government treasury bond auction criminal cartel probe.

Mr Gidley frequently represents parties in antitrust matters that have an international dimension, including work involving the American, European, Canadian, Korean, Japanese, Australian, and other competition authorities. Through these experiences, he offers his clients a broad knowledge of cross-cultural and multi-jurisdictional legal issues relevant in global antitrust matters.

Recent victories include representation of Stolt-Nielsen in the crucial April 2010, US Supreme Court ruling in the AnimalFeeds case, which defines the contours of permissible class arbitration. In 2007, Mr Gidley represented Stolt-Nielsen in a landmark win that upheld the enforceability of their amnesty contract with the US antitrust division after a three-week criminal trial. The Stolt-Nielsen trial victory was recognised by The National Law Journal as a leading defense trial victory in 2008. He has also represented Stolt-Nielsen in connection with a trial verdict before the Korean Fair Trade Commission. In another precedential matter, Mr Gidley attained the voluntary dismissal of antitrust counterclaims alleging Sherman Act liability against his client Shionogi Inc in December 2011, responding to Hatch Waxman patent litigation, in the first FRE 502 ruling on use of attorney opinions. He and his colleagues also won a jury trial victory in defence of Malaysian rubber producers against overseas price-fixing charges and defended the verdict on appeal (Dee-K v Heveafil), which was the first US jury trial under the Hartford Fire extraterritorial cartel test.

Mr Gidley's trial work also includes the first US trial victory involving government antitrust claims against branded-generic pharmaceutical settlements. Mr Gidley and team won a 40-day trial in 2002 before an FTC administrative law judge, defending the Schering-Plough/Upsher-Smith K-Dur settlement, and won the appeal against the FTC in the eleventh circuit in 2005. In February 2010, Mr Gidley and his team won dismissal of the FTC's 'reverse payment' suit in connection with the Solvay drug, AndroGel.

Mr Gidley maintains a very active merger and acquisitions practice, as well as experience in defence against private civil damages actions settlements. He represented SunGard Data Systems Inc in its acquisition of Comdisco before the US District Court for the District of Columbia in a Clayton Act Section 7 trial victory against the US Department of Justice antitrust division and Pilot Travel Centers in its Flying J acquisition. The AnimalFeeds and Pilot matters were designated as two of the most Innovative US legal matters by Financial Times.

Mr Gidley's practice draws on the breadth of White & Case's practice, conducted through 38 offices in 26 countries. He has evaluated or assisted with antitrust merger compliance obligations in over 80 jurisdictions. Mr Gidley is co-editor of Worldwide Antitrust Merger Notification Requirements, a compendium of merger compliance obligations around the world. He was ranked among the top 10 competition lawyers under the age of 45 worldwide in a Global Competition Review survey.