Aaron Chiu defends sophisticated clients in complex, enterprise-defining antitrust disputes and advises on emergent and antitrust issues.

Mr. Chiu leverages experience litigating marquee matters that test antitrust law’s boundaries and his acutely commercial focus to represent market-leading clients in precedent-setting cases involving:

  • Antitrust risks for digital platforms
  • Issues at the intersection of sports and antitrust
  • Sprawling class actions

He advises household names on preserving their ability to innovate while limiting the risk of litigation or investigation. Mr. Chiu regularly handles complex cases in sports, entertainment, and technology, defending clients from plaintiffs’ evolving theories.

Mr. Chiu maintains an active pro bono practice, regularly handling appeals through the Ninth Circuit’s Pro Bono Program.

As an active member of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Section, he serves on its Joint Conduct Committee and on the Editorial Board for its Antitrust Law Developments treatise. Mr. Chiu also participates on the Education Subcommittee of the California Lawyers Association’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section.

Mr. Chiu served as a law clerk to Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mr. Chiu’s experience includes representing:

Technology

  • A major global technology company in multiple litigations
  • Apple in a putative class action related to the design and implementation of Apple’s innovative Apple Pay and Apple Wallet features
  • Meta (formerly Facebook) in a variety of matters
  • DoorDash in antitrust litigation alleging a conspiracy among food delivery companies to implement most favored nation clauses (MFNs); after convincing plaintiffs’ counsel that DoorDash did not utilize the challenged MFNs, the plaintiffs dropped DoorDash from the amended complaint
  • Toshiba in a putative class action challenging a standard essential patent pool as anticompetitive and in a related successful international arbitration against Samsung to enforce a contractual covenant not to sue
  • RPX, a defensive patent risk-management solutions provider, in successfully defending challenges to its business model as comprising a patent buyers’ cartel by securing judgment on the pleadings and defending the judgment on appeal before the Ninth Circuit
  • HannStar Display in a Ninth Circuit appeal related to price-fixing lawsuits in which opt-out plaintiffs alleged price-fixing in the TFT-LCD panels industry

Entertainment, Sports & Media

  • The Atlantic Coast Conference in a putative class action antitrust case brought by current and former student-athletes against the NCAA and other collegiate conferences
  • World Aquatics, the International Federation for aquatic sports, in a pair of antitrust lawsuits by the International Swimming League (ISL) and Olympic swimmers alleging that World Aquatics leveraged its role as governing body to boycott a professional swimming league. Defeated the swimmers’ bid to certify a damages class and obtained summary judgment on all antitrust claims, earning Litigator of the Week Honors from The American Lawyer.
  • US Soccer in a high-profile antitrust lawsuit by soccer promoter Relevent Sports alleging that US Soccer conspired with FIFA and others to preclude official foreign league soccer matches from being played on US soil and to boycott professional soccer players, clubs, and leagues that seek to play in such matches, for which the team garnered recognition from The American Lawyer and Global Competition Review
  • A global media conglomerate in a government investigation into bid-rigging in the advertising industry

Additional Industries

  • American Airlines in a federal trial, successfully defeating claims by a group of private plaintiffs that sought to unwind American Airlines and US Airways’ merger, garnering recognition as an American Lawyer Litigator of the Week runner-up
  • Ferrellgas Partners in multidistrict litigation alleging that it conspired to reduce propane exchange tank fill levels and thereby fix propane exchange tank prices, in which Latham obtained dismissal of more than half of the consumer class’s remaining state-law claims and subsequently defeated class certification, garnering recognition within The American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Week column

Bar Qualification

  • California

Education

  • JD, University of Southern California Gould School of Law, 2012
    Order of the Coif
  • AB, Princeton University, 2009
    magna cum laude

Languages Spoken

  • English
  • Chinese (Cantonese)
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December 28, 2023 Recognition

Encore! One Last Look at 2023’s Litigators of the Week

Four Latham teams were honored as winners of The American Lawyer’s prestigious Litigators of the Week column in 2023. The wins spanned multiple litigation practices and industries, including antitrust, intellectual property, securities, environmental and product liability, technology, and sports, among others.