McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

La lutte internationale contre les pratiques anticoncurrentielles n’a jamais été aussi active. Les enquêtes menées par les États et les autorités de concurrence ne cessent en effet de s’intensifier et leur champ de s’élargir. La coopération interétatique dans le cadre des enquêtes sur les pratiques anticoncurrentielles est courante, et les actions privées, notamment les recours collectifs, connaissent également une certaine croissance.

Pour faire face aux situations complexes que ce constat impose, l’assistance d’avocats expérimentés, présents à l’international et rompus aux principaux cadres réglementaires et instances de règlement des différends aux niveaux national et international vous est nécessaire. Les compétences pointues dont McDermott Will & Schulte dispose à travers ses différents bureaux lui permet de vous conseiller avec efficacité sur la législation antitrust américaine, le droit de la concurrence de l’Union européenne et français, la loi anti-monopole chinoise et au droit de la concurrence dans d’autres pays du monde.

Nous avons analysé des milliers d’opérations de rapprochement d’entreprises – parmi les plus grandes sur leur marché respectif – et leurs conséquences sur le plan du droit de la concurrence. La défense que nous proposons à nos clients en matière de recours collectifs relatifs aux ententes sur les prix est de premier ordre. Par ailleurs, notre équipe spécialisée en droit de la distribution a récemment assisté un client dans la résiliation d’une centaine de contrats de distribution aux États-Unis, sans qu’aucune action en justice n’ait été intentée en retour.

McDermott figure, pour la cinquième année consécutive, sur la liste « Global Elite » de la publication Global Competition Review répertoriant les meilleures équipes en droit de la concurrence. Notre succès est reconnu par différentes organismes renommés de notation sectorielle et des professionnels du droit, tels que BTI Consulting Group, Chambers and Partners et U.S. News – Best Lawyers, ainsi que par des publications comme Benchmark Litigation, The Legal 500, et The World’s Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers.

Programmes de conformité

Nous conseillons nos clients sur l’élaboration et la mise en œuvre de programmes de conformité portant notamment sur la propriété intellectuelle et les licences de droits de propriété intellectuelle, les fusions et acquisitions, les systèmes de distribution, les échanges interentreprises, l’arbitrage des risques et l’élaboration de normes. Nous aidons nos clients à identifier le public cible approprié, à retenir son attention et à l’informer des potentiels risques en droit de la concurrence. Nous fournissons en outre à des entreprises majeures, en France et à travers le monde, des formations, des politiques d’entreprise, des directives et des programmes efficaces et complets en matière de conformité. McDermott mène également des audits en droit de la concurrence afin d’aider ses clients à identifier les risques de pratiques anticoncurrentielles et à mettre au point des stratégies visant à limiter ces risques.

Distribution

Nous accompagnons fabricants, fournisseurs, négociants et entreprises à tous les niveaux de la chaine de distribution en matière commerciale, transactionnelle, réglementaire, et contentieuse. Nous aidons nos clients à mettre au point et à modifier des réseaux de distribution, à résilier des contrats de distribution de manière économique, à analyser les réseaux de distribution dans le cadre de fusions, et à introduire et mener des actions en justice entre distributeur et négociant. Nos avocats disposent en outre d’une grande expérience en rédaction et négociation de contrats de distribution (notamment, B2B) dédiés au commerce électronique. Notre envergure internationale nous permet de conseiller des multinationales sur leurs pratiques de distribution en tirant parti de la collaboration de nos équipes réparties à travers le monde.

Global trade rules shape how your business moves goods, capital, and technology – but they are increasingly fragmented, politicized, and enforced in real time. Our international trade lawyers help you navigate international trade law across jurisdictions, aligning compliance with your commercial goals so you can operate, transact, and grow with fewer disruptions.

With teams across key global trade centers and experience spanning policy, enforcement, and transactions, we help you anticipate risk, structure cross-border activity, and respond quickly as rules change. Our integrated approach connects international trade law with national security, regulatory, and transactional considerations – so your business can operate effectively as conditions evolve.

As sanctions, export controls, customs rules, technology restrictions, and national security regulations increasingly intersect, decisions in one area can create unintended exposure across your business. We guide you through overlapping US, EU, and UK trade and national security regulations, including:

• Sanctions and export controls
• CFIUS, foreign subsidies, and other national security investment reviews
• Customs, tariffs, and import compliance
• Supply chain controls, product compliance, forced labor requirements, and supply chain due diligence obligations
• Data transfer, cybersecurity, and technology restrictions
• Outbound investment and economic security restrictions

Trade risk cuts across sourcing, contracting, financing, and distribution. We help you assess exposure across counterparties, jurisdictions, and supply chains; design compliance programs that scale with your operations; and structure transactions with trade controls in mind. Our experience also extends to diligence tied to sanctions, export controls, customs, contractual protections, third-party risk management, and internal investigations and regulatory engagement.

Trade rules are often shaped through enforcement and policy decisions as much as through written law. We represent clients in trade remedies proceedings – WTO and trade agreement disputes, administrative proceedings before customs and regulatory agencies, and cross-border investigations, enforcement actions, litigation, and arbitration.

We also engage directly with policymakers and regulators to address tariffs, market access barriers, and trade policy developments. Drawing on extensive experience on Capitol Hill and before trade and regulatory authorities, we help advance your strategic objectives through targeted advocacy.

Global trade volatility can affect how you source, sell, invest, and grow. Our international trade lawyers manage that complexity with an integrated strategy – helping you navigate international trade regulation, pursue cross-border opportunities, and move your business forward in a changing global trade environment.

Disputes can disrupt your operations, drain resources, and create uncertainty that affects business performance. Our litigation and dispute resolution lawyers help you navigate high-stakes disputes while reducing uncertainty, managing risk, and protecting your long-term business interests.

Our litigation and dispute resolution practice is comprised of experienced litigators and trial lawyers throughout the US and Europe. Working across practices, we provide integrated counsel tailored to complex disputes. By combining industry- and practice-specific knowledge with trial and appellate experience, we assess how disputes are likely to evolve and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Our lawyers guide you through every stage of a dispute – from early case assessment through litigation, trial, and appeal. With a dedicated appellate practice that has handled hundreds of appeals, including matters before the US Supreme Court, we approach cases with trial and appellate strategies aligned from the outset.

When litigation is not the most effective path forward, we partner with you to resolve disputes through arbitration and mediation. Our lawyers represent you in proceedings before the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and other arbitral bodies – helping you control risk, maintain confidentiality, and preserve business relationships.

In addition to commercial disputes, we advise you on sensitive investigations and government enforcement actions. We conduct internal investigations involving allegations of misconduct, compliance issues, and potential regulatory violations. We also represent you in proceedings involving the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), self-regulatory organizations, stock exchanges, and other state and federal agencies.

Our litigation and dispute resolution lawyers understand how disputes can affect your business and reputation. By combining litigation experience with practical business insight, we help you assess risk, reduce uncertainty, and determine the most effective path forward – whether through litigation or strategic resolution outside the courtroom.

We represent financial institutions, payments companies, fintechs, and other consumer-facing businesses in high-stakes investigations and enforcement matters involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and state attorneys general. Our team advises clients across the full lifecycle of regulatory risk – from supervisory examinations and investigations through enforcement actions and litigation – helping them respond strategically and mitigate exposure.

Drawing on senior-level experience inside the CFPB and FTC, we provide clients with a practical understanding of how regulators think, prioritize and pursue enforcement. We regularly counsel on matters involving unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP), electronic payments and transfers (Regulation E), lending and disclosure requirements (Regulation Z), and other core consumer protection frameworks.

Our approach integrates defense with forward-looking risk management. We help clients navigate regulator inquiries, prepare for and manage examinations, and engage effectively with enforcement staff. We also advise on identifying and addressing compliance gaps, including in the context of transactions, where consumer protection risks can impact valuation, deal certainty and post-close exposure.

With experience spanning rulemaking, supervision, enforcement and litigation at the federal level, we bring a comprehensive, insider-informed perspective to resolving complex consumer financial services issues in an increasingly active and fragmented regulatory environment.

We represent and defend companies and individuals facing government investigations and prosecutions involving allegations of white-collar crime. Our deep bench includes former federal prosecutors from the DOJ with experience leading hundreds of investigations and high-profile criminal trial proceedings across the full range of white-collar criminal offenses in every major district in the US and across all industries. We have a robust global team in the UK and Europe that comprises former regulators, in-house counsel, and private practice litigators with decades of experience representing companies and individuals in criminal and regulatory proceedings and associated litigation.

Our white-collar lawyers excel in crisis management and leverage insider knowledge of how criminal cases are investigated and prosecuted globally to help clients minimize their exposure. Clients turn to us for defense against allegations of white-collar crime, including:

• Bank fraud and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)
• Bankruptcy fraud
• Corporate Fraud
• Counterintelligence and national security matters
• Crypto-enabled offenses
• Cybercrimes
• FCPA and Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA)
• Healthcare fraud
• Insider trading
• Mail and wire fraud
• Money laundering
• Public corruption
• Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) offenses
• Securities fraud
• Tax fraud

Our team has decades of experience navigating the shifting global anti-corruption landscape and advising on compliance with the FCPA, UK Bribery Act, and other anti-corruption laws. Offering a strategic and practical approach paired with a deep understanding of compliance risk, we guide our clients through FCPA industry sweeps, complex cross-border investigations, DOJ and SEC enforcement actions, and monitorships. Global companies and individuals turn to us to build effective anti-corruption compliance programs, weather uncertainty, and respond effectively to government scrutiny.

Our team handles a broad range of anti-corruption matters, including:

• High-stakes internal and government-facing investigations
• Enforcement matters before DOJ, SEC, and other government authorities
• Compliance program development and implementation
• FCPA monitorships, as both the government-appointed monitor and company counsel
• Compliance risk assessments
• Anti-corruption due diligence for M&A transactions

Multinational companies and their executives face an increasingly complex – and increasingly global – enforcement environment. Our global compliance team helps clients anticipate and manage global risk with confidence and, where necessary, respond to global investigations quickly and efficiently.

Our multinational team draws on its deep experience to help clients develop and enhance compliance programs; conduct multidisciplinary, cross-border investigations; and defend them in regulatory investigations, enforcement actions, and associated related civil litigation. We have particular experience helping clients navigate issues in the US, UK, and EU across the full spectrum of regulatory compliance, including:

• Cross-border government investigations and enforcement actions
• Global anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance
• Anti-bribery and corruption, including potential violations of the FCPA, UK Bribery Act, and other international laws
• Global whistleblower protections and initiatives
• Corporate governance and reputation management

Our white-collar defense team works closely with lawyers in our market-leading health and life sciences practice to defend the world’s largest healthcare and life sciences companies in government investigations, fraud and abuse lawsuits, and other high-profile civil and criminal cases that shape the industry.

Our lawyers have decades of experience defending clients against civil and criminal government enforcement and litigation, including False Claims Act (FCA) investigations and litigation, whether intervened by the government or not. We routinely handle matters under the FCA, the Stark Law, and the Anti-Kickback Statute. We also advise on corporate governance, cybersecurity, pharmaceutical marketing and pricing, and payer-provider disputes. Our team includes:

• Numerous former US attorneys and healthcare fraud lawyers from the DOJ
• Former senior officials from the HHS Office of Inspector General and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• Regulatory and compliance lawyers who are nationally recognized authorities on the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute and its safe harbor regulations
• Seasoned healthcare defense lawyers with a proven track record representing health and life sciences clients in high-stakes disputes
• Lawyers skilled at advising on regulatory and compliance issues and FCA risk in transactional settings