When legal issues intersect with brand identity and customer trust, Munger, Tolles & Olson provides counsel that is strategic and sensitive to public impact in a rapidly changing commercial landscape.

Retail & Consumer Products

Legal strategies that protect brands, resolve disputes and support growth.

Retail & Consumer Products

Overview

Whether navigating a labor dispute, addressing litigation or planning a business transaction, retail companies need legal partners that understand their industry’s pace, risks and visibility. Munger, Tolles represents national retailers, manufacturers and consumer brands in their most sensitive and high-profile legal matters, acting as litigators and trusted advisors on issues that affect the bottom line.

Our work spans employment disputes, wage-and-hour class actions, product liability claims, internal investigations and commercial litigation. We often secure favorable outcomes ¾ including defeating class certification, minimizing liability, compelling arbitration and resolving large-scale Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) actions ¾ before reputational damage or litigation costs escalate.

From legacy retailers to emerging consumer brands, we also advise clients on complex business matters, including mergers, restructurings and strategic partnerships. Our team represents retail clients in bankruptcy-related proceedings, price-fixing disputes and deal litigation, as well as in regulatory enforcement and investigations.

As the issues that retailers face become increasingly complex, often national in scope, our interdisciplinary approach ensures our clients benefit from the full depth of the firm’s experience across litigation, labor and employment, regulatory and corporate matters.

Client alert.

New Employment Laws Taking Effect January 1, 2025

Starting on January 1, 2025, several new federal laws impacting California employers and new California employment laws will take effect, including an expansion of rights of employees who are victims of violence and revisions to paid family leave.

Experience

Employment Law

See’s Candies in defeating class certification for claims on meal and break policies. We demonstrated that See’s policies were lawfully applied, even when a statistical analysis of employee timecards suggested otherwise and successfully defended that result on appeal.
Major retailers in so-called suitable seating cases, all of which we helped resolve at extraordinary discounts ¾ some for less than a penny per dollar claimed.

Class Actions

We are known for delivering innovative legal strategies and extraordinary results in class action litigation. Our experience includes:

CVS Pharmacy, Inc., in reversing a $650 million verdict arising out of multidistrict litigation concerning the opioid crisis. After a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio found CVS, Walgreens and Walmart liable for public-nuisance claims related to the opioid epidemic, the pharmacy companies appealed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in turn asked for the Ohio Supreme Court to rule if the Ohio Public Liability Act nullifies the counties’ claims. The court found that the statute’s definition of a product liability claim did not allow the types of claims brought by the counties and reversed the verdict.
A tobacco company and its subsidiary as lead national counsel in cases pending and threatened in Florida, California, New York, Washington, D.C. and Connecticut regarding alleged injuries caused by addictions to a line of nicotine pouches.

Product Liability

We address high-risk litigation with trial-ready defense, agile crisis response and strategies that address our clients’ immediate legal needs and their long-term business priorities. Our experience includes:

A life sciences company and its US subsidiary in three matters regarding claims that its weed killer causes cancer. Two of the matters settled shortly after we were hired, a third settled on the eve of trial.
Electronic Arts in nationwide products liability cases regarding allegations that video games are designed to be addictive. Recently, the defendants defeated a petition to consolidate the cases before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
PepsiCo against the California Attorney General in a consumer protection matter and investigation relating to the marketing of its Gatorade products.

Investigations and Misconduct

We have extensive experience representing organizations in their handling of sexual misconduct claims and routinely advise leading companies on communications strategies that account for sensitivities and public perception around this issue. Our experience includes:

A major retailer in an internal investigation into sexual harassment allegations made by multiple claimants.
A specialty retailer in an internal investigation of alleged sexual abuse of a minor employee by a high-level field manager.

Business Issues

We frequently represent retail and consumer products clients in strategic, corporate and financial matters. Our experience includes:

1-800 Contacts in obtaining dismissal with prejudice of a lawsuit for alleged sham litigation and attempted monopolization of the contact lens market claims by a rival contact lens seller.
Costco, in connection with canned tuna fish price-fixing claims against, among others, Bumble Bee, which sold its assets in a section 363 sale in bankruptcy court.
Whirlpool, the world’s largest home appliance manufacturer, as a creditor to Sears, Roebuck and Company in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.