Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Agree to $121 Million Settlements in LBO Antitrust Violations Case

MINNEAPOLIS, June 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. is pleased to announce that The Goldman Sachs Group and Bain Capital Partners have agreed to pay a total $121 million in settlement of the firm's class of plaintiffs clients in Dahl v. Bain Capital Partners. Bain has agreed to a settlement for $54 million, and Goldman Sachs agreed to a $67 million settlement, as two of seven defendants in that case. Plaintiffs are former shareholders of certain public companies who sold their shares to the Defendant private equity firms in large leveraged buyouts ("LBOs") announced between 2003 and 2007.

In 2007, the defendants, all major U.S. private equity firms, were charged in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, with a market allocation and bid-rigging conspiracy that violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The five other private equity firms include The Blackstone Group L.P., The Carlyle Group LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., L.P., Silver Lake Technology Management L.L.C. and TPG Capital L.P. Plaintiffs sought damages as a result of the defendants' alleged collusion to not bid against each other on deals to drive down the prices of many takeovers of publicly traded companies.

"We went toe-to-toe with the defendants over the past seven years and Bain and Goldman Sachs are the first defendants to agree to settlement terms. We look forward to a trial against the remaining defendants, currently scheduled for November," said K. Craig Wildfang, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs and co-chair of the Antitrust & Trade Regulation practice at the firm.

Wildfang, who led the class plaintiffs reached an historic $7.25 billion antitrust settlement in 2013 on behalf of a class of over eight million U.S. merchants who accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards, was trial counsel in the Dahl case, along with firm partners Thomas Undlin and Stacey Slaughter. The law firms Scott and Scott and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd also acted as co-counsel for plaintiffs.

About Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.

Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. (http://www.rkmc.com) is a litigation firm whose clients include numerous Fortune 500 corporations, emerging markets companies, entrepreneurs, and individuals as both plaintiffs and defendants. With more than 220 lawyers located in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York and Naples (FL), the firm is frequently engaged in high-stakes, complex litigation with significant bottom-line implications for clients.  Its business lawyers handle complex transactions in a variety of market segments and industries. Chambers USA 2014 ranked the firm in the first band nationally in the Antitrust: Plaintiff category, and regularly gives it top rankings for litigation. Corporate Counsel has named the firm a "Go-To Law Firm" and Multicultural Law has ranked the firm as one of the top national law firms for diversity. The American Lawyer ranked the firm seventh in the country in the 2013 Pro Bono Survey, and twice named the firm to the A-List. In 2014 Chambers and Partners ranked the firms antitrust practice group in the first tier nationally among law firm antitrust practices.

SOURCE Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.