Michael J. Kane

Biography

Michael J. Kane, a Shareholder of the Firm, is a graduate of Rutgers University and Ohio Northern University School of Law, with distinction, where he was a member of the Law Review. Mr. Kane is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and various federal courts.

Mr. Kane joined the antitrust practice in 2005. Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Kane was affiliated with Mager, White & Goldstein, LLP where he represented clients in complex commercial litigation involving alleged unlawful business practices including violations of federal and state antitrust and securities laws, breach of contract and other unfair and deceptive trade practices. Mr. Kane has extensive experience working with experts on economic issues in antitrust cases, including impact and damages. Mr. Kane has served in prominent roles in high-profile antitrust, securities, and unfair trade practice cases filed in courts around the country.

Currently, Mr. Kane is one the lead attorneys actively litigating and participating in all aspects of the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1720 (E.D.N.Y.) alleging, inter alia, that certain of Visa and MasterCard rules, including anti-steering restraints and default interchange fees, working in tandem have caused artificially inflated interchange fees paid by Merchants on credit and debit card transactions. After over a decade of litigation, a settlement of as much as $6.24 billion and no less than $5.54 billion was preliminary approved in January 2019. He is also one of the lead counsel in Contant, et al. v. Bank of America Corp., et al., 1:17-cv-03139-LGS (S.D.N.Y.) alleging a conspiracy among horizontal competitors to fix the prices of foreign currencies and certain foreign currency instruments to recover damages caused by defendants on behalf of plaintiffs and members of a proposed class of indirect purchasers of FX instruments from defendants.

Mr. Kane was also one of the lead lawyers in Castro v. Sanofi Pasteur, Inc., No. 2:11-cv-07178-JMV-MAH (D.N.J.), a certified class action of over 26,000 physician practices, other healthcare providers, and vaccine distributors direct purchasers, alleging that defendant Sanofi engaged in anticompetitive conduct to maintain its monopoly in the market for MCV4 vaccines resulting in artificially inflated prices for Sanofi’s MCV4 vaccine Menactra and the MCV4 vaccine Menveo. In October 2017 the court granted final approval the $61.5 million settlement.

Mr. Kane also had a leading role in Ross v. American Express Company (S.D.N.Y.) ($49.5 million settlement achieved after more than 7 years of litigation and after summary judgment was denied). In the related matter Ross v. Bank of America (S.D.N.Y.) involving claims that the defendant banks and American Express unlawfully acted in concert to require cardholders to arbitrate disputes, including debt collections, and to preclude cardholders from participating in any class actions, Mr. Kane was one of the primary trial counsel in the five-week bench trial. Mr. Kane also has had a prominent role in several antitrust cases against pharmaceutical companies challenging so-called pay-for-delay agreements wherein the brand drug company allegedly seeks to delay competition from generic equivalents to the brand drug through payments by the brand drug company to the generic drug company. Mr. Kane served as co-lead counsel in In re Microsoft Corporation Massachusetts Consumer Protection Litigation (Mass. Super. Ct., Middlesex Cty.), in which plaintiffs alleged that as a result of Microsoft Corporation’s anticompetitive practices, Massachusetts consumers paid more than they should have for Microsoft’s operating systems and software. The case was settled for $34 million. Other cases in which Mr. Kane has had a prominent role include: In re Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litig. (S.D.N.Y.) (settlement for $336 million and injunctive relief); In re Nasdaq Market Makers Antitrust Litig. (S.D.N.Y); In re Compact Disc Antitrust Litig. (C.D. Cal.); In re WorldCom, Inc. Securities Litig. (S.D.N.Y); In re Lucent Technologies, Inc. Securities Litig. (D.N.J.); City Closets LLC v. Self Storage Assoc., Inc. (S.D.N.Y.); Rolite, Inc. v. Wheelabrator Environmental Sys. Inc., (E.D. Pa.); and Amin v. Warren Hospital (N.J. Super.).