DLA Piper’s Pricing Solutions & Litigation team partners with its clients to navigate the complexities of pricing goods and services and advertising and disclosing those prices to consumers. We work closely with clients to develop custom solutions to mitigate risk and, if a dispute arises, craft innovative defense strategies to protect our clients’ brands.
In today’s rapidly evolving world, businesses face overlapping legal challenges related to how they price and advertise their products in the marketplace. Proliferating price disclosure laws, automatic renewal laws, tariffs, algorithmic pricing, dynamic pricing, emerging supply and distribution models, so-called dark patterns, and more have created a complex and ever-changing environment. Consumer-facing businesses, multinational corporations, and those with complex supply or distribution chains are particularly impacted by these issues.
DLA Piper’s Pricing Solutions & Litigation team takes a multidisciplinary approach to helping clients overcome risk and thrive in this environment through proactive counseling and strategic defense. This group combines the expertise of lawyers in class action litigation, antitrust, advertising, consumer protection, international trade, and national security to craft innovative, holistic, and practical solutions that help clients stay ahead of the curve.
“They have an experienced team that works well together. They can make information very understandable to clients, judges and juries.”
Navigating emerging challenges and legal complexities
Forward-looking solutions to mitigate vulnerabilities and drive resiliency
Navigating pricing issues is complex - and the consequences of missteps can be severe. While many firms are only now confronting these challenges, DLA Piper has been at the forefront for over a decade: tracking legal developments, litigating pivotal cases, shaping the arguments that define this evolving space and proactively counseling clients on risk mitigation strategies before a challenge arises. Our agile, forward-looking compliance strategies don’t just mitigate risk - they fortify your business for long-term resilience. With deep experience and a proactive mindset, we offer strategic guidance to approach the full array of pricing issues in a shifting regulatory landscape.
Hands-on strategies align compliance with business objectives
Compliance isn’t one-size-fits-all. We work with clients to develop customized approaches to identify risks related to pricing issues before a dispute arises. This investment helps clients avoid litigation and provides a stronger foundation for a defense, if a dispute arises. We go beyond base legal advice, embedding with your in-house teams as a hands-on strategic partner to develop solutions tailored to the nuances of your business. Together, we navigate regulatory demands and proactively mitigate risk - always with practical, business-minded solutions tailored to specific business objectives. Our approach is grounded in deep experience at the forefront of pricing issues, delivering compliance strategies that are both effective and built to last.
Comprehensive, creative litigation strategies
Your business needs drive our litigation strategy. We start by aligning with your goals, risk tolerance, and desired outcomes - then tailor our approach accordingly. When early resolution is the priority, we leverage our reputation and deep factual analysis to pursue strategic dismissals or favorable settlements. When the goal is complete victory, we build and execute a robust litigation plan from the outset, ensuring every move is calculated, purposeful, and aligned with your interests. Our innovative approach combines deep-dive factual and strategic investigations, pressure-tested demand tactics that exploit key leverage points, and tailored litigation strategies informed by real-time intelligence on the forum, players, and local dynamics. This often leads to early dismissals or low-value settlements, minimizing disruption, reducing costs, and strengthening your legal position.
Cross-disciplinary approach, informed by experience
Pricing issues don’t arise in silos, and our approach reflects that reality. We understand our clients face overlapping challenges in this space, and we deliver real world, commercial solutions. We’re uniquely positioned to do this because our collaborative team has been at the forefront of pricing issues including:
- Antitrust litigation and investigations related to algorithmic pricing, including counseling both algorithm providers and users, defending clients in multiple ongoing MDLs, and securing an early dismissal of an alleged pricing algorithm user in a high-profile class action.
- Resort and live entertainment ticket fees, including defeating a putative class action filed against major hospitality companies alleging inadequate disclosure of resort fees.
- Successfully defended some of the world’s largest hotel brands against allegations of unfair resort fee charges.
- Defended a wide arrange of consumer-facing businesses relating to alleged unfair or misleading fees (such as delivery fees, service fees, online convenience fees, shipping fees, employee benefit fees, etc.) ranging from resort and live entertainment companies to food and beverage and retailer businesses.
- State law pricing disclosure rules, including successfully defended businesses in some of the first of its kind class action litigation filed for alleged violations of California’s Hidden Pricing Law, and related legislation.
- Tariffs and export controls, including advising numerous businesses on a comprehensive approach to tariff and trade compliance, and representing a leading multinational in a global investigation related to tariff and export control violations.
- Securing dismissal of two putative class actions filed against an entertainment company for alleged “drip pricing” and the purported failure to disclose fees for entertainment tickets.
- Resale pricing, and minimum advertised price policies, including leading the successful resolution of an investigation into a global manufacturing company related to alleged resale price maintenance.
- Pricing and distribution strategies, including counseling leading global businesses on the design of their sales and distribution practices and successfully defending them in Robinson-Patman Act litigation.
- Price signaling, including successfully resolving without enforcement a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation of a publicly traded consumer products company.
- Alleged deceptive pricing, including successfully defending numerous clients in FTC, Department of Justice, state Attorneys General and class action matters related to alleged deceptive pricing.
- Price advertising counseling to develop pricing practices that comply with federal and state laws to help clients proactively price their products in a way that avoids false discount claims.
- Counseling clients on so-called dark patterns and other tactics designed to obfuscate the price of an item, particularly in ecommerce environments.
