Paul M. Kaplan

Paul Kaplan is a Partner in the New York office of GRSM and Co-Chair of the Antitrust Practice Group.

Paul focuses his practice on corporate and commercial litigation, including business litigation and dispute resolution, antitrust litigation and counseling, class action defense, and white collar defense and civil and criminal investigations. He represents domestic and foreign financial institutions and corporations and their directors and officers in federal and state litigation and regulatory matters. He counsels corporations on the antitrust ramifications of business transactions with a view to avoiding or minimizing exposure to antitrust claims in litigation and represents financial institutions and corporations facing regulatory or court enforcement actions.  He has represented corporations and senior executives in federal and state government investigations, involving both criminal and civil matters.

He has represented clients in financial services, telecommunications, health care (doctors and hospitals) and medical devices, consumer goods and electronics, college and amateur sports, automotive parts, university book stores and natural resources.

Paul has practiced law for more than 35 years with major law firms and corporations in the United States and Europe.  He began his legal career in London, England where he was an associate with an Anglo-American law firm.  Following a clerkship in Boston with the late Honorable R. Ammi Cutter, a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court, Paul joined the legal department of AT&T in New York, then involved in a complex business reorganization and divestiture, pursuant to a federal court antitrust divestiture decree.  He also held the title of vice president at Citibank, NA (Citigroup) in the General Counsel’s office and at J.P. Morgan Chase (Chemical Bank), where he was group counsel in the bank’s Middle Market/Financial Services group.

Paul has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where he taught an advanced antitrust course for 20 years.  He has been a guest lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Law, Boston University School of Law and Northeastern University School of Law.

He has organized, on behalf of the government of Israel, a financial services delegation to Israel led by the late Honorable Jack Kemp (former U.S. Representative from New York, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Republican Party nominee for Vice President in 1996).

Paul is a four-time finisher of the New York City Marathon with a best time of 3:48:31.

Admissions

• New York
• Massachusetts
• Supreme Court
• U.S. District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
• U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts
• U.S. Court of Appeals, First, Second, and Tenth Circuits

Memberships

• American Bar Association
  • Antitrust Law Section, Clayton Act Committee
  • International Law Section
• New York City Bar Association
  • Antitrust and Trade Regulation Committee
  • Banking Law Committee
• The London School of Economics New York Development Committee

Community Involvement

• Board of the American Fund, The London School of Economics
• Boston University, College of Arts & Sciences, Dean’s Advisory Board
• Board of the American Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Board of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry
   

• Various hospitals, medical doctors and healthcare providers –Representations of hospitals, insurance companies, doctors and healthcare providers in federal and state courts.
• Japanese auto parts investigation by the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division – In a price fixing and bid rigging criminal antitrust investigation, represented the CEO (for US, Mexico and Canada) employed by a foreign auto parts manufacturer in a federal, criminal antitrust investigation.  The investigation involved allegations that the company participated in a conspiracy with competitors to fix prices and rig bids for auto parts sold in the U.S.  The plea agreement and judgment are public documents.  I was able to secure a “carve in” status for the client resulting in his non-prosecution and grant of immunity.  Twenty-six Japanese executives have received jail sentences as a result of the Japanese auto parts investigation, the largest investigation in the history of the Department of Justice.  Over $4 billion in criminal antitrust fines have been secured against all of the auto parts manufacturers.
• Darush v. Revision and Lovely Skin, U.S. District for the Central District of California (Judge Gary Feess) – Represented defendant, Lovely Skin, in a price fixing claim under California’s antitrust statute, the Cartwright Act.  After the first motion to dismiss was granted, the Plaintiff was given leave to amend his claim.  The case was then settled for a nominal amount.
• In Re Polyurethane Antitrust Litigation (MDL Docket No. 2196), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (Judge Jack Zouhary) – Represented defendant, Hickory Springs Manufacturing Co., in a price fixing and allocation of customer case. Two class actions, involving the direct and indirect plaintiffs, along with the opt out and direct plaintiffs.
• Genesis Corp. v. Solomon-Page – Actions in New York State Supreme Court and U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York involving a business dispute between two competitors. Claims under the Lanham Act, and in contract and tort.  Case was favorably settled.
• Macquaire Group Ltd. v. Pacific Corporate Group, LLC, 2009 WL 539928, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (Judge Irma Gonzalez) – Defended Macquaire Chairman, CEO and the five most senior officers in a business dispute with a former joint venture partner.  Plaintiff’s claims were as high as $100 million, but after Defendants’ four counterclaims survived Plaintiffs’ Motion to Dismiss, the parties settled the case.  This was a significant victory for the client in federal and state civil litigations in California.  In order to counter claim against the Plaintiffs, four separate claims were asserted, which survived an Iqbal/Twombly Motion to Dismiss.  This motion required a heightened pleading standard as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Acquisition of Dialysis Corp. of America by US Rental Care – Represented Dialysis Corp. of America in a $120 million transaction. The transaction was approved by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission within 20 days.
• Mountain West Football Conference – Presented testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the Antitrust violations of the college football structure, the BCS.
• The Book Exchange v. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, In The Circuit Court of Monongalia County, West Virginia – Defended Barnes & Noble Booksellers in a price fixing and a consumer protection case that resulted in our Motion to Dismiss being granted with prejudice.
• Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, et al. v. Glen Billing, U.S. Supreme Court – Submitted Amicus Curiae Brief in support of Petitioner for W. R. Hambrecht + Co., LLC arguing for antitrust immunity for permissible underwriting conduct, which was the decision of the Court.

Publications

• Legal and Illegal Monopolies: Why The PGA-LIV Merger Will Not Survive Regulatory Scrutiny, New York Law Journal, October 2023
• It’s Past Time to End the National Pastime’s Antitrust Exemption, Thomson Reuters - The Antitrust Counselor, May 2023
• Broken Windows and a Lost Search Engine: ‘Microsoft’ as a Roadmap for ‘Google,’ New York Law Journal, February 2022
• Wanting Your Cake and Eating It Too: Apple's Mistaken Strategy in Apple Inc. v. Pepper, The Antitrust Counselor, August  2019
• An Important Case For Both Wall Street And Amateur Sports, Law360, August 2016
• Critical Legal Advice to Japanese Companies and Their Executives in the Auto Parts Industry, Shukan New York Seikatsu, February 2016

Presentations

• Webinar on Microsoft and Google Litigations, Thomson-Reuters/Westlaw, New York, NY, March 2022

Education

LL.M., London School of Economics, University of London

J.D.,  Northeastern University School of Law

B.A., cum laude with distrinction, Boston University

• College of Arts & Sciences Trustee Scholar 
• Dean’s List

CLERKSHIP

Justice R. Ammi Cutter (Ret.), Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court, Boston, MA

Honors

AV Preeminent, the highest peer rating from Martindale-Hubbell®
This rating is given to attorneys who are ranked at the highest level of professional excellence for legal expertise, communication skills and ethical standards by their peers.