Daniel Alberti, Raymond Jacobsen, Jon Dubrow, Margaret Warner, M. Miller Baker, Cerissa Cafasso and Clint Carpenter continue to represent beer distributor Constellation, as plaintiffs attempt to revive a class action antitrust lawsuit challenging the company’s role in the Anheuser-Busch InBev / Grupo Modelo merger.

David Hanselman, Raymond Jacobsen, Nicole Castle and Chelsea Black were noted as defense counsel for one of multiple major gypsum and drywall makers in an amended antitrust class action which alleged price-fixing by the defendants. The manufacturers challenged a homebuilder’s attempt to expand the timeframe of the complaint.

Sarah Columbia successfully argued in Texas federal court that two mobile email technology patents client Blackberry was accused of infringing were invalid because their claims involved an abstract “very old human concept” and “basic human protocol.” Jon Dean added that the plaintiff had worked with Blackberry for 11 years on projects using the patents but waited to file suit in an “egregious” delay. Also on the McDermott defense team were Leigh Martinson, Russell Hayman, Tala Jayadevan and Rita Yoon.

Daniel Alberti, Raymond Jacobsen Jr., Jon Dubrow, Margaret Warner, M. Miller Baker, Cerissa Cafasso and Clint Carpenter successfully represented Constellation Brands in the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of a California antitrust case. The plaintiffs claimed an agreement requiring AB InBev to sell Modelo’s US distribution rights to Constellation still allowed the beverage giant to control Modelo’s prices after acquiring the company.

Stephen Kranz said that the background of the Multistate Tax Commission’s new deputy executive director “should be viewed as likely guaranteeing” that the MTC’s proposed transfer pricing program “goes live in the near future.” Diann Smith agreed, noting that the new executive’s past MTC involvement means “there will not be much of an organizational learning curve. He will hit the ground running.”

Stephen Kranz and Diann Smith discussed defining state tax discrimination on Internet purchases. Ms. Smith said that “it seems that if Congress does not specifically designate a separate discrimination definition, it is perfectly reasonable that the statutory discrimination concept is the same as the commerce clause discrimination concept.” Mr. Kranz added that Congress “clearly … has the authority” to define tax discrimination, but that “any definition could have a negative impact outside the realm in which it was specifically created.”

Brooks Gruemmer, Emily Watson, Krista Lewis, Daniel Zucker, Maureen O’Brien, Gary Rosenbaum, Sarah Steigleder, Shawn Helms, Levi Kahn, Carla Hine and Jennifer Mikulina were members of the McDermott team that provided legal counsel to data analytics provider Infogix Inc. in its $300 million sale to a private equity investor.