Eric Fastiff To Chair Lieff Cabraser's Antitrust And Intellectual Property Practice Group

The national plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, announced today that partner Eric B. Fastiff has been appointed chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Intellectual Property Practice Group.

“We are excited that Eric is assuming leadership of our dynamic Antitrust and Intellectual Property Practice Group,” stated Steven E. Fineman, Lieff Cabraser’s Managing Partner. “Earlier this year, the Daily Journal recognized Eric and the attorneys in the group as one of the top five law firm practice groups in California. Over the past fifteen years, Eric has played a decisive role in Lieff Cabraser’s precedent-setting and landmark antitrust cases.”

“We also welcome David Rudolph to the firm,” Fineman added. “David possesses a wealth of experience in the field of intellectual property law.”

“Fair competition and the protection of copyrights, patents, and other intellectual property are essential to our nation’s economic growth,” stated Fastiff. “At Lieff Cabraser, we level the playing field for our clients, holding accountable those that have abused their monopoly power, fixed prices, stolen intellectual property, or conspired to restrain trade.”

“I am proud to join a law firm with a forty-year commitment to, and successful track record of, fighting for the rights of its clients,” commented David Rudolph. “Lieff Cabraser has a deep bench of talented and experienced trial lawyers. I look forward to bringing my knowledge and skills to the firm to protect the rights of our clients, no matter how wealthy or powerful the defendant.”

About Eric B. Fastiff

Fastiff has practiced antitrust and commercial litigation for the past fifteen years, working on numerous cases involving the food, technology, finance, home furnishing, natural resources, and music industries. Fastiff also represents businesses in commercial disputes with their suppliers and competitors. His clients include governments, businesses, individuals, and consumer groups.

Fastiff is currently representing The Charles Schwab Corporation in a suit against several major banks for allegedly manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is used as a reference rate by financial institutions around the world. He also represents local California governments in the municipal bond Guaranteed Investment Contract bid-rigging litigation, as well as businesses that purchased TFT-LCD panels and products in litigation charging that the world’s leading TFT-LCD manufacturers conspired to fix prices. To date, in the TFT-LCD litigation, the Court has approved settlements totaling over $405 million.

Lieff Cabraser attorneys are currently in trial on behalf of a class of TFT-LCD purchasers against Toshiba, the remaining defendant. Lieff Cabraser also represents a proposed class of high technology employees who claim their compensation was reduced as a result of agreements between Apple, Adobe, Intel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Google, and Intuit not to cold-call each other’s employees.

Fastiff’s notable recent successes include the class action litigation against De Beers for monopolization of the rough diamond trade in the U.S. In addition to successfully obtaining class certification in the California action, Fastiff played a key role in negotiating and finalizing the $295 million settlement in the federal case. Discussing the DeBeers case, The National Law Journal noted that Lieff Cabraser was “among the plaintiffs’ firms that weren’t afraid to take on one of the business world’s great white whales.”

Earlier successful cases which Fastiff actively litigated include the BuSpar and Lupron prescription drug pricing litigation and the landmark California natural gas and electricity pricing litigation.

Fastiff has published and edited multiple works. For several years, he was the General Editor of California Class Actions Practice and Procedures and he continues to serve on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Generic Medicines.

An active member of the San Francisco Bay Area community, Fastiff serves on the Boards of Directors of a low-income housing apartment complex and an elementary school. He served on the Boards of Trustees of a nursing home for the aged and impoverished and a non-profit organization that assisted low-income employees in maximizing their salaries.

A native San Franciscan, Fastiff graduated from Cornell Law School, the London School of Economics, Tufts University, and Lowell High School.

About David Rudolph

Joining Fastiff in our San Francisco office, Rudolph has both prosecuted and defended high-profile patent infringement claims in multiple federal district courts and before the International Trade Commission. His extensive litigation experience spans a broad range of technologies including internet services, storage virtualization, semiconductor design, and handheld mobile devices. Rudolph also has experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in copyright infringement and trade secret matters.

A 2004 graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Rudolph served for one year as a law clerk for the Hon. Saundra Brown Armstrong, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. Prior to joining Lieff Cabraser, Rudolph practiced intellectual property litigation at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP.

About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, is a sixty-plus attorney law firm with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Nashville. We are among the largest law firms in the United States that only represent plaintiffs.

A strong, principled sense of social responsibility drives Lieff Cabraser’s attorneys. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has been committed to achieving justice for investors, consumers, employees, patients, governments, and business owners, promoting safer products and fair competition, protecting our environment, and remedying violations of the civil rights of citizens worldwide. Lieff Cabraser’s comprehensive and diverse practice is unique among plaintiffs' law firms.

Since 2003, The National Law Journal has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the top plaintiffs’ law firms in the nation. The firm is one of only two plaintiffs' law firms in the United States to receive this honor for the last nine consecutive years. In 2011, Best Lawyers and U.S. News named Lieff Cabraser as the national “Law Firm of the Year” for plaintiffs’ class action law.