Retail and Consumer Products Litigation

We are much more than skilled litigators: our first priority is keeping our clients out of court.

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP’s Retail and Consumer Products Litigation group offers clients strategic counsel, gained through decades of representing industry leaders. We focus on clients that make and sell goods: retailers; manufacturers; food and beverage companies of all types, including grocers and restaurant chains; hospitality companies; franchisors and distributors; e-commerce operators; and related trade groups. We assist clients to develop and implement compliance protocols to avoid litigation where possible. When litigation is unavoidable, we vigorously represent our clients as either plaintiffs or defendants—from discovery through appeal. No matter the nature of the representation, we strive to achieve each client’s business goals in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Our litigators, along with other attorneys throughout the firm who counsel retail clients, have won numerous awards in recognition of our retail practice and achievements in litigation, including Benchmark Litigation (2017) and a national ranking in Chambers USA (2017). Chambers USA notes our clients appreciate our “excellent service, global presence and perspective” and our “reliable work.”

We Have a Wide Range of Experience Relevant to Our Client’s Needs

Our skilled litigators, located in major markets around the country and possessing decades of experience, are licensed to practice in all 50 states, US district courts and appeals courts and before various tribunals. We represent companies in matters ranging from compliance planning to routine consumer and commercial disputes and bet-the-company litigation. We have extensive trial experience on a wide range of legal claims, and our attorneys have taken more class action cases to verdict than perhaps any other firm in the country.

Our diverse team has the collective knowledge and skill necessary to help businesses identify and manage potential risks, respond appropriately to existing or threatened litigation and pursue reasonable resolution in any venue. Our retail and consumer products litigation team possesses significant areas of litigation experience that include:

• Consumer litigation, particularly class actions and multidistrict litigation;
• Product liability and mass tort litigation;
• Commercial disputes, including business-to-business litigation;
• Advertising and marketing litigation;
• Antitrust and competition litigation;
• Privacy and data breach litigation;
• Labor and employment litigation;
• Insurance litigation;
• Intellectual property litigation (patents, trademarks, copyrights); and
• Government contracts disputes and litigation.

We Offer Solutions

Our approach to litigation begins long before a case is filed, and is intended to avoid litigation, if possible. Knowing that ongoing collaboration is key to avoiding costly litigation, we seek to develop strategic partnerships with our clients to address their needs proactively and on budget. We invest in learning about the client’s industry and special business needs, and in return offer the client proactive measures with the ultimate goal of minimizing litigation, reducing payouts and increasing revenues.

We offer educational programs for company management and in-house counsel on compliance with relevant statutes, including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), ADA website compliance, FTC and state labeling requirements and other federal and state advertising and marketing requirements. We also provide pre-suit counseling on policies that could potentially trigger litigation, such as website terms and conditions, in-store signage, return policies, gift card policies, credit card rewards programs, in-store texting and advertising and a whole range of policies and practice relevant to consumer-facing companies.

As part of our proactive approach to client counseling and risk avoidance, we develop incident response plans, which can make it easier and more effective to manage private litigation, government litigation and regulatory actions that follow from alleged product issues. Our plans address remediation, risk mitigation, employee concerns and public relations, to prepare clients for dealing with such challenges.

Should litigation become unavoidable, we draw upon our deep bench of talent to work collaboratively with the client and across our various offices and practice groups to best accomplish the client’s business goals. We perform docket reviews to give clients a “second opinion” on existing litigation, with the goal of identifying alternative strategies, triaging cases and reducing caseloads. We craft creative alternative fee arrangements that align risk and reward with our clients, and we will serve as national coordinating counsel to hire and manage local co-counsel when that is more cost-effective. The firm’s robust litigation support offerings and investment in technology enable us to streamline discovery and trial preparation, and to present a compelling story to judges and juries.

Our team also has experience assisting clients in revenue generation through plaintiff recovery actions and business-to-business (B2B) claims. Staying on top of our clients’ agreements, patents and potential for legal recoveries is a top priority for our business-minded attorneys. We review potential claims against suppliers—such as antitrust, RICO and contract claims—in a research- and data-driven manner, focusing on the likelihood of success and future claims. We have extensive experience identifying and handling opt-out claims from proposed Rule 23 cases as well as patent portfolio analysis and patent monetization as part of larger intellectual property and asset management plans.

Simply put, we help our clients identify problems and opportunities. Then we help solve them.