Sarah R. LaFreniere

Experience

Sarah’s practice focuses on complex litigation predominantly antitrust, financial services, and consumer protection matters. Sarah represents clients in litigation for harm suffered throughout the world, using innovative solutions to provide exceptional advocacy. Her experience spans a wide range of complex litigation, and her efforts have helped clients recover more than $2.3 billion in settlements.

Clients

Sarah’s clients include individual investors, investment funds, multinational corporations, and consumer products manufacturers.  She represents a whistleblower in a qui tam action alleging Medicare and Medicaid fraud and consumers effected by fraudulent emissions software.  Sarah’s former clients include specialty film exhibitors, a leading software manufacturer in copyright-infringement litigation against the federal government, an industry organization in the first amendment sphere, and a royalty-rights holder in the college athletics space.

Practice Areas

Antitrust / Competition

• In re Diisocyanates Antitrust Litigation –  Sarah represents a class of manufacturers in claims against major industrial suppliers for conspiring to artificially inflate prices of the chemicals methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) and toluene diisocyanate (TDI).
• In re Foreign Exchange Benchmarks Rates Antitrust Litigation - Sarah represents market participants in the foreign exchange market against international banks alleged to have fixed the price of foreign exchange instruments.
• 2301 M Cinema LLC d/b/a West End Cinema et al v. Silver Cinemas Acquisition Co. et al. -Sarah represented art house cinemas in a successful settlement against a nationwide theater chain for monopolizing the market for specialty films.

Deceptive Business Practices and Consumer Protection

• VW “Clean Diesel” Litigation – Sarah represents European consumers in Germany and elsewhere seeking damages from Volkswagen AG in relation to that company’s massive “clean-diesel” fraud. Sarah has been at the forefront of litigation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, seeking to obtain evidence through U.S. discovery mechanisms for use in the European litigation.
• Sarah has argued in favor of the First Amendment rights of plant-based food advocates in briefing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

What Others Say

• Best Lawyers named Sarah to its inaugural "Ones to Watch" list (2020-2021)
• Sarah was recognized as a "Rising Star" by Super Lawyers (2020-2021)
• Law360 recognized Sarah as a "Rising Star" of Competition Law (2019)
• Sarah was honored by the American Antitrust Institute with the award for "Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement by a Young Lawyer" for her work on the In re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation (2018)
• As a student at American University Washington College of Law, Sarah received The Mussey Prize for the Highest Scholastic Average in the Final Year of Study

Education

American University Washington College of Law, J.D. (summa cum laude, order of the coif), 2014

University of Ottawa, J.D. (cum laude), 2014

McMaster University, BA (Hons., summa cum laude), 2008

Bar Admissions

District of Columbia

New York

United States Court of Federal Claims

United States District Court for the District of Columbia

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Affiliations & Memberships

Vice Chair, Civil Practice and Procedure Committee, American Bar Association Section on Antitrust Law (2020-2022)

Young Lawyer’s Representative, Civil Practice and Procedure Committee, American Bar Association Section on Antitrust Law (2019-2020)

Senior Note and Comment Editor, Administrative Law Review (2013-2014)

Judicial law clerk to the Honorable Victor J. Wolski on the United States Court of Federal Claims. (2014-2015)

Prior to law school, Sarah worked for Canadian Member of Parliament Scott Reid, and in that role served as the Associate Director of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism.

News & Press

"Rising Star: Hausfeld's Sarah LaFreniere," Law360 (October 3, 2019)

Publications

Author, "Personal Jurisdiction in Federal Class Actions: Three New Rulings but Little Clarity,” Hausfeld Competition Bulletin, reprinted in Lexology (May 20, 2020)

Co-Author, "The Equitable Future of Intercollegiate Athletics," Competition Policy International's Antitrust Chronicle (April 28, 2020)

Author, “What the Canadian Air Cargo Decision May Mean for Possible U.S. Claimants,” Hausfeld Competition Bulletin, reprinted in Lexology (March 5, 2019)

Author, “Inconsistent Case Law on 28 U.S.C. 1782 Continues to Confuse Litigants and District Courts,” Hausfeld Competition Bulletin, reprinted in Lexology (November 28, 2018)

Co-Author, "The Volkswagen Scandal: Catalyst For Class Action Change?" Law360 (Feb. 27, 2018)

Author, "Two Years After Campbell-Ewald, Defendants Face Uphill Battle “Picking Off” Named Plaintiffs," Hausfeld Competition Bulletin, reprinted in Lexology (Feb. 21, 2018)

Author, "Product hopping by a pharmaceutical company “likely” violated the antitrust laws," Hausfeld Competition Bulletin, reprinted in Lexology(Oct. 13, 2015)

Presentations & Speeches

Panelist, "Antitrust Practices Around the World," Hausfeld and Luthra Partners Joint Webinar (June 18, 2020)

Panelist, “The State of Leniency”, GCR Live 4th Annual Cartels, Washington, DC (March 26, 2019)

Panelist, “Why Antitrust”, ABA Section of Antitrust Law, American university Washington College of Law, Washington, DC (October 23, 2018)

In The News

Events

Articles

Perspectives