Aaron Chiu represents public and private companies in cutting-edge, precedent-setting antitrust disputes with a focus on sports and technology. 

  • Aaron guides clients through high-stakes antitrust cases involving:
  • Creative theories of antitrust
  • Athletes’ rights
  • Viewpoint discrimination
  • Class certification standards
  • Media rights
  • Intellectual property

An experienced trial lawyer and trusted advisor on emergent antitrust issues, he helps clients preserve the latitude to innovate and advance their businesses within the global economy while limiting the risk of litigation or investigation.

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

He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and serves on the Editorial Board for the ABA’s Antitrust Law Developments treatise. He also serves on the Education Subcommittee of the California Lawyers Association’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section.

Aaron previously served as a law clerk to Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninths Circuit.

He is Global Vice Chair of Latham’s Recruiting Committee.

Aaron's experience includes representing:

Sports & Entertainment

  • Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in reaching a highly favorable settlement in a class action involving a novel monopsony theory, alleging that UFC underpaid its fighters by not increasing compensation in line with UFC’s revenue growth
     
  • World Aquatics, the International Federation for aquatic sports, in a pair of antitrust lawsuits brought 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:
    • Securing a decisive victory in a high-profile antitrust action filed in the Eastern District of New York, in which the North American Soccer League (NASL) claimed that US Soccer conspired with Major League Soccer (MLS) to exclude NASL from Division I and II professional soccer and monopolize these markets through US Soccer’s Professional League Standards
    • Obtaining dismissal of a high-profile antitrust lawsuit brought by Relevent Sports alleging that US Soccer conspired with FIFA to preclude official foreign league soccer matches from being played on US soil, which garnered recognition from The American Lawyer and Global Competition Review

Technology

  • Apple in:
    • A putative class action by card issuers that use Apple Pay, alleging violations of the antitrust laws given Apple’s limitation of NFC access to Apple Pay on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch
    • Defeating a putative class action alleging antitrust violations premised on the initial Apple/AT&T exclusivity agreements with respect to iPhone service
    • A class action alleging that Apple's restrictions on third-party cloud storage services violate anti-tying laws and create an illegal monopoly, driving up prices
    • A class action alleging an unlawful antitrust conspiracy with Visa, Mastercard, and other payment networks to avoid entering the payment network business
    • A motion to intervene in the Google Search antitrust litigation brought by the United States and a collection of states in the D.C. District Court
  • DoorDash in antitrust litigation alleging a conspiracy among food delivery companies to implement MFNs; after convincing plaintiffs’ counsel that DoorDash did not utilize the challenged MFNs, DoorDash was dropped 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 aggregator, 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
  • A major technology company in reaching a highly favorable settlement of a lawsuit brought by a rival alleging anticompetitive pricing 

Additional Industries

  • Ferrellgas Partners in multidistrict litigation alleging a conspiracy to reduce the fill of propane tanks, in which Latham obtained dismissal of over half of the consumer class’ claims and defeated class certification, garnering The American Lawyer's Litigator of the Week recognition
  • American Airlines in obtaining a complete trial victory in antitrust merger litigation challenging the US$11 billion American Airlines/US Airways merger, garnering recognition in 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)
Chiu, Aaron T.
August 5, 2025 Recognition

Rising Star: Latham’s Aaron Chiu

Partner Aaron Chiu honored for defending clients in enterprise-defining antitrust disputes and securing critical litigation victories in complex cases for major sports organizations.