Economic consulting for litigation and regulatory review

Economic expertise for antitrust and class action matters

Freshwater Prestige Economics brings together former economists of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and a Ph.D. economist and CFA charterholder with a background in finance. We help attorneys analyze mergers, evaluate alleged anticompetitive conduct, and address class certification and damages with careful, defensible economic analysis.

Discuss a matter Meet the team

Former DOJ Antitrust Division economistsTwo team members served in the Division between 2014 and 2024
Three Ph.D. economistsUniversity of Rochester and The Ohio State University
Merger reviews and litigationHealthcare, telecommunications and media, technology, agriculture, and manufacturing

Practice areas

Where we help

We serve outside and in-house counsel as consulting and testifying experts, from early case assessment and agency review through expert reports, depositions, and trial.

Antitrust

Economic analysis of mergers and business conduct for agency investigations and private litigation.

Mergers and acquisitions: Market definition, market shares and concentration, unilateral and coordinated effects, merger simulation, efficiencies and pass-through, and responses to agency data requests and economic theories of harm.
Vertical issues: Input foreclosure, incentives to raise rivals’ costs, and the elimination of double marginalization.
Conduct and monopolization: Tying, exclusive dealing, refusals to deal, and buyer-side (monopsony) effects, including effects on suppliers and workers.
Cartels and coordination: The effect of alleged price-fixing, output restriction, or market allocation on prices, output, and discounting.
Market definition and competitive effects: Hypothetical monopolist tests, diversion and closeness of competition, and empirical work with transaction, claims, survey, and geographic data.

Class action

Economic analysis at class certification and on the merits, for plaintiffs or defendants.

Class certification: Whether common economic evidence and methods can establish impact and damages across the proposed class under Rule 23.
Common impact: Regression and pricing-structure analysis testing whether the alleged conduct affected all or nearly all class members.
Damages: But-for prices and overcharges, structural-break and before-and-after analysis, and aggregate and individual damages models.
Rebuttal: Review and critique of opposing experts’ data, methods, and models.

How we engage

Consulting experts
Confidential analysis to test theories, shape strategy, and prepare for the other side’s experts.
Testifying experts
Expert reports, declarations, and rebuttal reports, with testimony at deposition and trial, all built on transparent, reproducible work.
Data and econometrics
Large transaction, claims, and geolocation datasets, analyzed in Stata, R, Python, and SQL.
Agency and discovery support
Presentations to agency staff, and support for depositions of opposing experts.

Why Freshwater Prestige

Experience from inside the Antitrust Division

Two of our economists worked in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, one from 2014 to 2020 and the other from 2014 to 2024. They analyzed mergers and conduct for Division leadership, and that experience shapes how we work for private clients.

We know how the agencies evaluate a case

Division economists weigh market definition, competitive effects, and efficiencies in the framework the agencies apply. We help you anticipate the questions, the data requests, and the economic theories you will face.

Analysis built to withstand scrutiny

Our work is grounded in the record and in accepted economic methods, and it is documented so that it can be reproduced and defended before agency staff or in court.

Clear communication

We explain our findings plainly to counsel, clients, agency staff, and the finder of fact, and we tie the economics to the legal questions that matter.

Representative matter types

Health insurance and healthcare mergers
Telecommunications, cable, and broadcast media mergers
Technology acquisitions raising vertical foreclosure concerns
Agricultural and food-industry antitrust litigation
Price-fixing overcharges and damages
Tying by a hospital system
Class certification in healthcare and building materials
An international cement cartel investigation

These include matters that team members worked on at the Department of Justice or at prior employers.

Our team

The economists

Robert (Bob) Arons, Ph.D.

Managing Economist

Former Staff Economist, U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division

Ph.D. in Economics, University of Rochester

Bob Arons spent six years as a staff economist in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (2014–2020). There he analyzed mergers and conduct, including market definition and competitive effects, led teams of economists, and received the Assistant Attorney General’s Award in 2015, 2017, and 2019. He then joined Secretariat Economists (formerly Economists Inc.) as a Senior Economist and later Associate Director, where he analyzed alleged cartels’ effects on price and output, performed regression analysis for class certification, and signed an expert report submitted to the Competition Commission of India. His work spans merger reviews in health insurance, telecommunications and media, and technology, as well as cartel and class action matters in agriculture, building materials, and healthcare. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester, has taught industrial organization at Georgetown University, and serves as economics editor of the ABA’s Media and Technology News e-Bulletin.

Ross Brater, Ph.D.

Senior Economist

Former Economist, Economic Analysis Group, U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division

Ph.D. in Economics, The Ohio State University

Ross Brater is an antitrust economist who spent about a decade in the Economic Analysis Group of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, from 2014 to 2024. His Division work centered on merger analysis, and he served on the economic teams for the Division’s Aetna–Humana and T-Mobile/Sprint merger matters, both of which were recognized with Assistant Attorney General’s Awards. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from The Ohio State University, where his dissertation examined how loyalty rewards programs create switching costs and affect competition and entry. He also holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and economics from Ohio Wesleyan University and has taught principles of economics at NYU Washington, DC.

John Baynes, Ph.D., CFA

Senior Economist

CFA Charterholder; former Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance, Canisius University

Ph.D. in Economics, University of Rochester

John Baynes is an economist whose career spans investment banking, academia, and corporate finance. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from the University of Rochester, where his dissertation developed methods for dating and analyzing business cycles across U.S. states, and he has been a CFA charterholder since 2005. He began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he spent seven years, and from 2018 to 2023 was Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Canisius University, teaching econometrics and business analytics. He currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Awecom, a software company.

Contact

Schedule a consultation

Every engagement begins with a conversation. You know your case and your client’s business best, so we start with an in-person or virtual consultation to understand the questions, the record, and the timeline. We then propose an approach and a scope of work.

Email: contact [at] freshwaterprestige [dot] com
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9 AM–6 PM Eastern
Consultations: In person or virtual