Aaron Chiu represents public and private companies in complex, precedent-setting antitrust disputes and serves as a trusted advisor on emergent antitrust issues.
Mr. Chiu represents clients across a broad range of industries, with a particular focus on technology, as well as entertainment, sports, and media.
He helps clients preserve the latitude to innovate and advance their business within the global economy, while limiting the risk of litigation or investigation. He regularly litigates precedent-setting cases that involve questions of technology platforms, issues at the intersection of sports and antitrust, and evolving standards for class certification.
Mr. Chiu 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.
Mr. Chiu previously 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 global media conglomerate as non-parties in connection with the US DOJ’s and the State AGs’ monopolization cases against Google
- Meta (formerly Facebook) in a variety of matters
- DoorDash in antitrust litigation alleging a conspiracy among food delivery companies to implement certain contractual terms; after convincing plaintiffs’ counsel that DoorDash did not utilize the challenged terms, DoorDash was not named in the amended complaint and the litigation against DoorDash ended
- A multinational technology company before the US Supreme Court in a putative class action alleging that it had monopolized a retail market for the sale of applications through its application store distribution platform and commission structure
- A multinational technology company in successfully defeating a putative class action alleging that it violated antitrust laws by requiring a product’s purchasers to exclusively use one company for cellular service
- 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
- Hann-Star 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
- FINA, the world governing body for international and Olympic aquatic sports, in two high-profile antitrust lawsuits alleging monopolization of the international market for top-tier swimming competitions
- 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
- Pacific Gas and Electric in a seven-week criminal trial alleging the utility violated federal pipeline safety regulations following a gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, ending in dismissal or acquittal on 22 of 28 counts and a US$3 million fine, reduced from potentially more than US$1 billion