Events

On August 30, 2023, Senior Counsel Robert M. Langer will join Christopher Jones of the National Grocers Association and Travis Wheeler of Maynard Nexsen PC to present “Pricing Regulation in the News” at the Center for Alcohol Policy’s 16th Annual Alcohol Law & Policy Conference to be held in Philadelphia.

This panel will discuss both the intersection of state liquor pricing laws and the antitrust laws, as well as the renewed focus of the Federal Trade Commission upon the enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act. 

Mr. Langer in 2020 had served as Counsel of Record in the U.S. Supreme Court for the intervening defendants in Connecticut Fine Wine and Spirits d/b/a Total Wine & More v. Seagull. Mr. Langer and his colleagues, along with the Office of the Connecticut Attorney General, successfully defended the constitutionality of several Connecticut liquor pricing laws as against a challenge by the plaintiff that the statutes were preempted under the Supremacy Clause for being inconsistent with the Sherman Antitrust Act. Both the District of Connecticut and the Second Circuit concluded that the statutes were constitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Total Wine’s petition for a writ of certiorari. 

Mr. Langer, formerly the Connecticut Assistant Attorney General in charge of both Antitrust and Consumer Protection until he joined Wiggin and Dana in 1994, has taught courses on antitrust, unfair trade practices and constitutional law for forty-four years in UConn’s MBA Program (1979-2013); UConn Law School (2014-present); and Quinnipiac University School of Law (2021-present).

To learn more and to register, click here.