Event: Washington DC Networking Dinner following the AAI Conference Sponsored by Kroll

COSAL and Kroll Settlement Administration hosted an evening of cocktails, dinner, and discussion in the courtyard of the Willard hotel following the American Antitrust Institute’s Annual Policy Conference. Greg Asciolla, COSAL’s treasurer, was once again our emcee.  For introductions, he asked “If you were President of the United States, what NON-political action would you take on Day 1?”  The answers were creative and fun, and gratefully, did not lead to any political disagreements.

We had an impressive crowd, including Bill Caldes from Spector Roseman & Kodroff, one of our newer members.  We are very happy to welcome SRK to COSAL!  Two COSAL past Presidents, Dan Hedlund and Rob Kitchenoff, attended, as well as one of our founding members, Dick Lockridge.  We were pleased that Diana Moss, President of AAI, was able to attend the cocktail party.

Pamela Gilbert gave an update on COSAL committees and also talked about some recent developments from Capitol Hill. Specifically, a number of antitrust-related bills have been introduced, some with bipartisan support, that either include a private right of action and/or anti-forced arbitration and class action waiver language. This is great progress, especially where there is bipartisan support. Unfortunately, where the bills create a private right of action, they don’t get it exactly right. For example, a bipartisan bill that addresses anti-competitive conduct by Google and other ad tech companies, provides for specific roles for DOJ, state AGs and the private bar that are new, convoluted, and not as strong as the current federal antitrust enforcement regime. COSAL plans to bring members of our Policy Committee to Capitol Hill to educate staff about why there is no need to reinvent the wheel when there is an existing antitrust enforcement scheme in federal law that works quite well.