Steven C. Sunshine

Mr. Sunshine is recognized as a leading antitrust practitioner. He has been repeatedly listed in Best of the Best USA as one of the top competition lawyers in the world, was named one of America’s Top 200 Lawyers by Forbes in 2024 and has been regularly honored as one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America and 500 Leading Litigators in America. In addition, he has been selected to the Lawdragon Hall of Fame, which recognizes members of the Lawdragon 500 who have “made remarkable contributions as leaders in their field.” Mr. Sunshine has previously been named one of The National Law Journal’s Winning Litigators and Trailblazers, and is regularly selected for inclusion in Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Who’s Who Legal, The Best Lawyers in America, The Legal 500 and LMG Life Sciences. Addi­tionally, he has been repeatedly honored as a Competition MVP by Law360, a Litigator of the Week by The Am Law Litigation Daily and a finalist for Global Competition Review’s Antitrust Lawyer of the Year. The Financial Times report on U.S. Innovative Lawyers also recognized his work on Sprint v. AT&T as a Standout litigation matter.

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 Activision/Microsoft; Adobe/Figma; Sprint/T-Mobile; Juniper/HPE; Ansys/Synopsis; Nokia/ Infinera; Splunk/Cisco; Catalent/Novo Nordisk; HPE/Cray; Visa/Plaid; Coherent/II-VI; DoorDash/Caviar; Xilinx/AMD; Intel/sale of a modem business; NXP/Qualcomm; Embraer/ Boeing; Becton Dickinson/C.R. Bard; Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent; Intel/Mobileye; Cardinal/Medtronics; Yahoo!/Verizon; HP/ HyperX and Samsung sale of printers; Broadcom/Avago; Plum Creek/ Weyerhaeuser; Freescale/ NXP; Anheuser-Busch/Grupo Modelo; Sprint/Clearwire; Air Products/ Evonik; SanDisk/Western Digital; Southwest/AirTran; Gilead/Pharmasett; SanDisk/Fusion-io; Rite-Aid/Envision; Cisco/ Tandberg; Exelon/Constellation and Pepco; Duke/Progress Energy; Corning/Becton Dickinson Labware; Valeant/Allergan, Medicis and Bausch & Lomb; Jet Aviation/General Dynamics; Actavis/Forest and Warner Chilcott; Rockwood/Elementis; and De Beers/Louis Vuitton.

Mr. Sunshine’s litigation experience includes defending Activision Blizzard in a lawsuit brought by the FTC challenging the proposed acquisition of the company by Microsoft; defending Sprint in a challenge by 14 states to its merger with T-Mobile; defending Sabre Corporation in the Justice Department’s challenge to its proposed acquisition of FareLogix; defending EnergySolutions in DOJ’s challenge of its proposed acquisition of WCS; defend­ing Sabre Corporation against a monopolization action brought by USAir; representing Sprint in its antitrust challenge to AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile; representing Oscar Health in its monopolization case against Florida Blue; defending Anheuser-Busch in a U.S. antitrust attack against its distribution in Ontario; representing Bausch & Lomb in a multidistrict litigation regarding antitrust challenges to its contact lenses pricing policies; defending Nokia from IP allegations; defending Actavis Pharma­ceuticals in suits brought by the FTC and private plaintiffs relating to “reverse payment” IP settlements for Androgel; defeating a challenge by private plaintiffs to Anheuser-Busch’s acquisition of Modelo; representing Medicis in a multidistrict litigation relating to life cycle management and patent settlements for Solodyn; representing Actavis/Teva in suits brought by the FTC and private partners relating to Lidoderm; 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 Actavis in suits defending patent settlements relating to Lidoderm; 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; 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, Corning International KK; 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.