Julie Elmer is a Chambers-ranked partner in the firm’s antitrust, competition, and trade and litigation practices. With 30 years of civil litigation experience, including complex commercial litigation and class action litigation, Julie focuses on antitrust litigation, as well as federal and state merger and civil conduct investigations.
Before joining Freshfields in July 2020, Julie spent five years at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she was lead trial counsel in United States v. EnergySolutions and United States v. Sabre. In private practice, Julie’s antitrust litigation experience includes defending Google in litigation relating to its ad tech business and successfully defending McWane, Inc. against the FTC’s price-fixing claims in the GCR 2015 Americas Behavioral Matter of the Year. Before DOJ, Julie was a partner at one of the premier defense firms in the Southeast. There, her practice focused on defending mass actions ranging from consumer fraud and business torts to construction defect and product liability. Her work in these areas encompassed jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations, motion practice, and every other facet of complex litigation.
Julie’s experience includes, at the US Department of Justice:
- Leading the DOJ’s victorious trial team in US v. EnergySolutions, the last litigated case in which a court addressed the failing firm defense;
- Leading the DOJ’s trial team in US v. Sabre, a case involving nascent competition and technology platforms;
- Handling merger and conduct investigations across a range of industries, including agriculture, aviation, canned seafood, energy, online travel, semiconductors, standard-setting organizations, telecommunications; and travel technology services;
- Playing critical roles on the DOJ’s trial teams in US v. AT&T/Time Warner and US v. United Continental;
- Playing a key role on the civil antitrust side of the DOJ’s parallel civil and criminal investigations of bid-rigging by South Korea-based fuel supply contractors to US military bases in South Korea, resulting in the largest civil antitrust damages settlement the US government has recovered to date; and
- Deposing key executives and building trial ready teams in Bayer/Monsanto and T-Mobile/Sprint.
In private practice, including at her previous firms, Julie’s experience includes:
- Defending Google in litigation relating to its ad tech business, United States et al. v. Google, LLC (E.D. Va.), In
re Google Advertising Antitrust Litigation (S.D.N.Y.), and The State of Texas, et al. v. Google LLC (E.D. Tex.),
alleging violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act; - Defending a manufacturing company in two FTC conduct investigations and in follow-on private antitrust litigation;
- Defending McWane, Inc. in an FTC enforcement action where, following an eight-week trial, the administrative law judge rejected the FTC’s price fixing claims and the full Commission subsequently dismissed six of seven conspiracy and monopolization claims; and
- Defending corporate clients in commercial litigation and arbitration in a broad range of industries including financial services, pharmaceuticals, construction, biotechnology, transportation, and insurance.
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