Claudia Higgins joined Kaye Scholer LLP following over two decades of distinguished service at the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), where she last held the title of Assistant Director for Regional Litigation with responsibility for the Commission’s regional office antitrust efforts across the entire country. As such, she oversaw FTC investigations and enforcement efforts in a wide range of industries, including consumer products companies, natural resources companies, manufacturing firms and high-technology companies.
MEHRSince coming to Kaye Scholer, Ms. Higgins has been recognized by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business for her "expert guidance through all the complex aspects" of antitrust, her skill in connection with complex mergers and the depth of her insights based upon her years of experience practicing at the FTC. She has represented Fortune 500 companies before both the FTC and the Department of Justice in a number of significant matters, many of which have involved not only difficult antitrust issues, but also important and complex intellectual property and patent rights of her clients.
Ms. Higgins has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in connection with a number of significant consumer products transactions.
Illustrative matters include:
- Representing Reed Elsevier, parent of LexisNexis, in connection with its acquisition of a competing data analysis company, ChoicePoint.
- Obtaining early termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period for the largest consumer products company in a market to acquire a prominent competing product in the same market.
- Representing the Meow Mix Company in connection with its sale to Del Monte Foods.
- Successfully representing the owner of a trend-setting consumer-branded product, which was also the clear market leader, in a strategic acquisition involving a significant competing brand.
- Representing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in securing unanimous clearance from the FTC of its proposed merger with Brown & Williamson, which combined the second- and third-largest companies in the industry.
- While with the FTC, representing the agency's successful challenges of various consumer products mergers in industries such as spices, over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceutical products and sophisticated amateur telescopes.
In addition to mergers and acquisitions, Ms. Higgins is active in both antitrust counseling and litigation. For example, she currently represents Norfolk Southern Corporation in an ongoing multidistrict class action litigation involving the U.S. freight railroads. She counsels clients in a variety of industries regarding antitrust matters, distribution agreements and licensing, and advises companies in connection with complex patent-antitrust matters and antitrust compliance.
Prior to assuming her management responsibilities at the FTC, Ms. Higgins tried both preliminary injunction matters before federal district courts, as well as complex litigation in the agency's administrative hearing tribunal. During her career, she was responsible for antitrust merger enforcement actions and anticompetitive conduct investigations in a broad range of industries. Among several awards she received for her outstanding accomplishments for the FTC, the agency awarded her its Distinguished Service Award as well as its prestigious Paul Rand Dixon Award, recognizing her leadership role in merger enforcement.
Ms. Higgins' track record on behalf of the FTC includes numerous investigations and potential litigations involving intellectual property and patent issues. She served as lead counsel in charge of some of the Commission's most noteworthy merger transactions, many of which encompassed complex investigations, district court preliminary injunction preparation, evidentiary materials, subpoena drafting and enforcement, negotiations of discovery demands and modifications to subpoenas, drafting of district court complaints, and ultimately, consent decrees issued by the Commission. She appeared as lead counsel for consent decrees involving many of today's most prominent research-based pharmaceutical companies, the investigations for which invariably involved analysis of the patent rights of parties to the transaction, as well as complaints and information provided by competitors of the parties.
Ms. Higgins' cases include the mergers of:
- Ciba Geigy and Sandoz (now named Novartis)
- Glaxo and Wellcome (now merged with SmithKline Beechum)
- Upjohn and Pharmacia (now merged with Pfizer)
- American Home Products and American Cyanamid (now named Wyeth)
- Hoechst and Rhone Poulenc (now part of sanofi-aventis)
- Hoechst and Marian Merrell Dow (now part of sanofi-aventis)
- Merieux and Connaught (now part of sanofi-aventis)
- Hoechst and BoehringerMannheim (now part of sanofi-aventis)
- Merck and Medco
- Rite Aid's attempted transaction with Revco
Ms. Higgins has extensive experience in antitrust issues involving industries as varied as consumer goods, defense and aerospace, technology, and the health care industry. This experience hails from both her practice at the FTC and from representing clients before the FTC and the Department of Justice since joining Kaye Scholer. In addition to numerous other speaking engagements, Ms. Higgins has been sought out as an instructor on behalf of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development in Paris and the U.S. Agency for International Development. She has advised competition authorities in Romania, Latvia, Korea, Japan, Brazil and numerous other countries, and has coordinated investigations with the EU and its member nations. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars on antitrust matters.