Bernard Persky is the Chair of the Firm’s Antitrust Practice Group. For more than 38 years his practice has involved complex business litigation and class actions, primarily antitrust, trade regulation, securities fraud and civil RICO. Among his peers, he is recognized as a leading antitrust litigator. He has played a key role in major antitrust class actions that have resulted in monetary recoveries to class members, including consumers and businesses, of well over $1 billion.
In County of Suffolk v. Long Island Lighting Company, a case in which Mr. Persky was Co-Lead Trial Counsel, the Second Circuit, in upholding a $400 million class settlement and awarding attorneys’ fees to Plaintiff, quoted the trial judge, Honorable Jack B. Weinstein, as stating “counsel [has] done a superb job [and] tried this case as well as I have ever seen any case tried.”
Mr. Persky has acted as Co-Lead Counsel in major antitrust class actions, including: In re Natural Gas Commodity Manipulation Litigation ($101 million settlement); In re Warfarin Sodium Antitrust Litigation ($44.5 million settlement); In re Buspirone Patent Litigation ($90 million settlement); In re Lorazepam & Clorazepate Antitrust Litigation ($135 million settlement); In re Stock Exchanges Options Antitrust Litigation ($47 million settlement); In re Foundry Resins Antitrust Litigation ($14.2 million settlement); In re TriCor Antitrust Litigation; In re Parcel Tanker Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation; In re OxyContin Antitrust Litigation and In re Energy Transfer Partners Natural Gas Litigation.
He is a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute and the Executive Committee of the Antitrust Section of the New York State Bar Association and co-author of an article entitled “Antitrust Protections Expanded In New York,” New York Law Journal. He has also lectured before bar associations (Indirect Purchaser Antitrust Litigation) and other interested groups (How Viable Is Hatch Waxman Class Action Litigation: Plaintiffs’ Perspective).
Mr. Persky earned a B.A. from the City College of New York in 1965, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1968.
He is admitted to practice in New York, before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for Second, Third and Fifth Circuits and the United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York.
