Dina Older Aguilar coheads Cornerstone Research’s healthcare practice. She also heads the firm’s San Francisco office. Ms. Older Aguilar specializes in economic analyses of class certification, liability, and damages issues, as well as merger evaluations. Her work spans antitrust and competition, consumer fraud, product liability, and intellectual property matters. In addition to healthcare, her industry expertise includes agriculture, biotechnology, financial services, high technology, and transportation.
Healthcare
Ms. Older Aguilar consults on competition matters involving healthcare payors and providers, including:
- Claims of horizontal conspiracy
- Alleged exclusionary behavior
- Claims of unfair business practices
- Healthcare organization mergers
Ms. Older Aguilar has assessed issues of common impact at the class certification stage, and damages related to breach of contract, patent infringement, and other claims. She has also assessed hospital-billing practices, self-insurance plans, and drivers of healthcare expenditures.
Antitrust and competition
Ms. Older Aguilar assesses liability and damages in complex competition litigation, particularly in cases related to alleged price fixing, joint boycott and other cartel behavior, monopolization, exclusionary conduct, and unfair business practices. She has consulted on a number of high-profile antitrust cases.
Merger reviews
Ms. Older Aguilar has assessed the competitive impact of mergers in agriculture, healthcare, media, and telecommunications markets. She consults to merging parties in prescreening transactions, and in preparing white paper analyses and expert report submissions to federal and state regulatory agencies. She has also provided economic consulting to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Consumer fraud and product liability class actions
Ms. Older Aguilar has expertise in assessments of consumer decision-making, purchasing behavior, and impact of alleged fraud on product pricing. These include analyses of sales and pricing data, content analysis of marketing communications, and consumer surveys. Ms. Older Aguilar has consulted on matters in the personal computing, consumer finance, and automotive industries.
Damages analyses and expert testimony
Ms. Older Aguilar assesses damages in a range of matters involving alleged unfair business practices, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), theft of trade secrets, and patent infringement. Her work in this area includes Monsanto Co. v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
As an expert witness, Ms. Older Aguilar analyzed the potential anticompetitive effects of certain labor contract provisions, and damages due to an alleged breach of contract between a large manufacturer and its supplier.
Presentations and publications
Ms. Older Aguilar regularly speaks at ABA and other trade and academic sponsored events. She has written several articles and coauthored the chapter on economic expert testimony in Proof of Conspiracy under Federal Antitrust Laws.
