Bonnie Lau

Bonnie helps clients navigate internal and government antitrust investigations, enforcement proceedings, and class action litigation in federal and state courts. She leverages her over 15 years of experience in civil and criminal antitrust litigation and investigations to advise clients across a range of industries that face government scrutiny, including technology, manufacturing, media, telecommunications, healthcare, and financial services.

A dynamic litigator and trial lawyer, Bonnie has significant experience defending class actions, multidistrict litigations, and enforcement actions, and deftly handles international competition investigations and enforcement issues. She has tried several bench and jury trials to verdict, and recently served as lead trial counsel in an antitrust class action jury trial. She has defended companies in antitrust and related complex litigation involving claims of price-fixing, output suppression, monopolization, predatory pricing, and group boycott, as well as prosecuted antitrust counterclaims in patent and IP infringement matters. In addition to her work in the antitrust area, Bonnie has represented clients in various complex commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution matters relating to unfair competition, RICO, TCPA, and intellectual property claims.

Bonnie devotes herself to promoting diversity and inclusion in the legal community, serving as chair of the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity Alumni; co-chair of the Women’s Leadership Network for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association; a member of the board of directors of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Justice and Diversity Center; and liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Bonnie also maintains a robust pro bono practice, and recently received the Partner in Justice Award from the Center for Justice and Accountability for her work on a human rights case representing Haitian victims of torture, arson, and extrajudicial killing.

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Bonnie handled class action and complex litigation, antitrust, RICO, intellectual property, and technology-related matters as a partner at another global firm.

Representative Matters

• Defending a Japanese technology and manufacturing client in a consolidated class action litigation alleging federal and state antitrust and consumer protection claims and related Department of Justice Antitrust Division price-fixing conspiracy investigation and criminal proceedings. Managing parallel international class actions and coordinating defense of foreign regulatory antitrust investigations.
• Defending the largest broadcast television station operator in the United States in a putative class action alleging price-fixing of television advertising in multiple markets nationwide.
• Representing a major healthcare company in a criminal investigation.
• Represented SoftBank and Sprint in federal civil litigation proceedings in California in connection with Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile.
• Won an en banc Eleventh Circuit decision affirming dismissal with prejudice of federal antitrust claims in a multidistrict litigation comprised of 24 individual and putative class action cases across the country which allege antitrust, RICO, and/or steering violations against over a hundred major automobile insurance carriers.
• Won an appeal, defeated three separate attempts to certify a class, excluded expert methodology, and won complete summary judgment of individual claims in antitrust and unfair competition class action against a major automobile insurer, alleging a conspiracy to charge anticompetitive premiums to policyholders.
• Prosecuted a Handgards antitrust counterclaim in a patent infringement lawsuit by a non-practicing entity. Following the trial of the patent infringement claims, and a post-judgment remittitur of the award, won complete victory in the Federal Circuit, which reversed the jury’s finding of infringement and vacated the award of damages.
• Prosecuted a Walker Process antitrust counterclaim in a patent and intellectual property infringement lawsuit.
• Obtained a favorable settlement of a putative class action where the plaintiffs sought to impose conspiracy or vicarious liability upon a major international life insurer for its independent insurance producer’s separate Ponzi scheme conspiracy. Forced the plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss the federal class action and re-file on behalf of 22 plaintiffs who were proceeding individually in state court.
• Defended three putative class actions against a major title insurer alleging improper escrow fees and failure to provide discounted refinance rates for title insurance policies. In the lead case, won a motion to decertify class based on changes in class action jurisprudence. Won a motion for summary judgment on remaining individual RICO and consumer fraud claims.