Honeywell International

An O’Melveny team scored a victory for Honeywell International in a multi-district antitrust class action stemming from allegations of price fixing in the aftermarket auto filters industry. Based largely on evidence gathered by O’Melveny, the United States Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia convicted a purported whistleblower who provided to plaintiffs’ lawyers and regulators evidence he knew was false, which purportedly showed that Honeywell had fixed prices. Class action plaintiffs relied on the whistleblower in bringing antitrust civil claims, and had vigorously pursued discovery, as well as employing a panoply of economists. Because of O’Melveny’s work, the criminal investigation of Honeywell was shut down, and the whistleblower himself was convicted of a federal crime. As a result of convincing the trial court handling the civil class action that the plaintiffs’ claims were based on tainted evidence, we successfully settled the class action for nuisance value.