Steven C. Sunshine

Steven C. Sunshine is the North American group leader of Skadden’s antitrust and competition practice. He represents clients in connection with antitrust aspects of litigation, mergers and acquisitions, counseling and grand jury investigations.

Mr. Sunshine is recognized as one of the leading antitrust practitioners in the market. He repeatedly is selected for inclusion in Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Best Lawyers in America and other similar guides. He was named one of Law360’s MVPs of 2011 in the competition category. Mr. Sunshine also was a finalist in Global Competition Review’s “Antitrust Lawyer of the Year.” The 2012 Financial Times report on U.S. “Innovative Lawyers” recognized his work on Sprint v. AT&T as one of the “Standout” litigation matters of the year. Mr. Sunshine was recently named “Litigator of the Week” by The Am Law Litigation Daily for his role in the Eleventh Circuit’s dismissal of FTC v. Watson.

Mr. Sunshine was formerly deputy assistant attorney general in charge of merger enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. While there, he supervised interventions in more than 35 proposed transactions, including those in the telecommunications, computer, consumer products, mining and industrial sectors.

Mr. Sunshine has led antitrust representations in numerous M&A transactions, including Anheuser-Busch/Grupo Modelo; Southwest/AirTran; Gilead/Pharmasett; Cisco/Tandberg; Exelon/Constellation and NRG; Duke/Progress Energy; Corning/Becton Dickinson Labware; Valeant/Medicis, Biovail, Dermik and Ortho; Jet Aviation/General Dynamics; StorageTek/Sun Microsystems; Watson/Actavis; Arrow and Andrx; Rockwood/Elementis; Gambro/DaVita; De Beers/Louis Vuitton; Evian/Coke; Rhone Poulenc/Hoechst (Aventis); SmithKline/GlaxoWellcome; Bell Atlantic/Nynex; and Fiat-New Holland/Case.

Mr. Sunshine’s litigation experience includes successfully representing Sprint in its antitrust challenge to AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile; defending Watson Pharmaceuticals in a suit brought by the FTC relating to “reverse payment” IP settlements; representing Southwest Airlines in securing a dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit challenging its acquisition of AirTran; defending De Beers in connection with national class actions involving gem diamonds; representing Energy Transfer Partners in the successful defense of an antitrust class action in the Texas natural gas market; defending a pharmaceutical company CEO in a challenge to an FTC investigation; defending Solvay and Laboratoires Fournier in connection with 20 suits alleging monopolization of a major pharmaceutical product; and defending Hankyu Hanshin Express Ltd. in an alleged price fixing conspiracy in freight forwarding.

Mr. Sunshine also represents clients in connection with grand jury investigations into allegations of price fixing or other cartel conduct. He has resolved key matters for companies such as De Beers, Hankyu Hanshin and SGL Carbon, and successfully represented many clients in several investigations that closed without indictment or plea. He also represented Globe Telecom in successfully quashing a grand jury subpoena, ending a Department of Justice criminal investigation.

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