Food & Beverage
Arnold & Porter maintains a sophisticated and deeply-experienced food, beverage, and dietary supplement practice. Our clients retain us for everything from routine tasks like label reviews to their most challenging matters — frequently involving unusual state laws, complex scientific issues, and interaction among court proceedings, agency regulatory action, and legislative efforts — at the international, federal, state, and local level.
Our diverse client base includes manufacturers and distributors of ingredients and packaged products; brand owners; food, beverage and dietary supplement retailers; vineyards, wineries, and breweries; and agribusiness companies. With decades of experience in this industry, we have a proven track record representing some of the world's biggest and best-known brands, as well as the leading trade associations for foods, beverages, and dietary supplements.
The depth of our practice is reflected in the wide array of services we provide to our clients, including:
Consumer Protection and Advertising. We advise food, beverage, and dietary supplement companies on litigation, including consumer class actions and Lanham Act cases, and on challenges before the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council. Our attorneys also handle litigation matters that arise out of, or lead into, federal or state regulatory scrutiny, including matters before or involving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), state attorney generals, local district attorneys, and government agencies.
This experience provides us a unique perspective and we regularly work closely with our clients to review advertising strategies and materials on the front end to help avoid disputes. In addition to flagging risks based on “hot button” claims involved in consumer protection litigation, our experience also includes ensuring that claims satisfy FDA and United States Department and Agriculture (USDA) regulations around health, nutrition and structure/function claims and meet appropriate substantiation requirements established by multiple agencies and the growing body of caselaw.
Regulation and Enforcement. We represent food, beverage, and dietary supplement clients with respect to products regulated by the FDA, USDA, FTC, and state agencies. With a wide variety of food-related regulatory experience, our team addresses the most highly complex and novel regulatory assignments ranging from labeling considerations to ingredient safety and approvals, agency inspections and enforcement, emergency preparedness, recalls, and compliance matters. We also strive to keep our clients abreast of emerging issues that affect their products and operations, including novel contaminants such as PFAS, shifting agency priorities, issues of acute litigation risk, and the ever-changing world of state regulation of products and packaging.
Intellectual Property. Intellectual property is of significant value to companies, and our intellectual property attorneys are widely recognized for their experience protecting food, beverage, and dietary supplement company brands and trademark rights, including trademark counseling, clearance, and registration work; trademark and trade dress enforcement, including cease and desist letters, trademark infringement litigation, and counterfeiting and grey goods enforcement; proceedings at the USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board; protection of design patents and copyrighted materials; and counseling on trademark licensing matters.
Transactions. The firm's corporate and finance attorneys frequently provide counseling regarding sales and acquisitions of food, beverage, and dietary supplement companies. Additionally, we serve as general counsel to companies and negotiate and document transactions, including manufacturing and supply agreements, warehousing and distribution arrangements, licensing of intellectual property, cooperative research and development agreements, acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, formation of foreign enterprises, and financings. Our regulatory and advertising teams also regularly provide due diligence and contract drafting support on transactions, including review of regulatory compliance and marketing portfolios.
Consumer Product Safety. We have leading practices in matters before the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and in matters arising under state consumer protection laws. Our team, which includes a former General Counsel of the CPSC, regularly assists clients in matters covering the spectrum of CPSC actions — recalls, enforcement actions, and regulatory matters — as well as in litigation that can arise from product safety matters.
Mass and Class Actions. As a premier class action defense firm, we have particular experience coordinating and litigating multi-district and multi-state class and mass actions, regularly serving as national coordinating, lead, and appellate counsel in state and federal courts throughout the United States. We handle mass and class actions related to consumer protection, false advertising, product liability, distributor disputes, antitrust, securities, and environmental matters, among other areas.
Key Contacts
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Recognition
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Chambers USAFood & Beverages: Regulatory and Litigation (Nationwide) (2024)
Retail (Nationwide) (2024)
Advertising: Transactional and Regulatory (Nationwide) (2024)
Product Liability & Mass Tort: The Elite (Nationwide) (2024)
Product Liability: Regulatory (Nationwide) (2024)
Intellectual Property (Nationwide) (2024)
Intellectual Property: Trademark, Copyright & Trade Secrets (Nationwide; Washington, D.C.; New York; Illinois) (2024)
Intellectual Property: Litigation (Washington, D.C.) (2024)
Intellectual Property: Patent (New York) (2024)
Corporate/M&A & Private Equity – Washington, D.C. (2022-2024)
Corporate/M&A: Highly Regarded – Nationwide, New York, California: San Francisco, Silicon Valley & Surro (2022-2024)
Litigation: General Commercial: (Colorado, Illinois, Texas: Houston & Surrounds) (2024)
Litigation: General Commercial: Highly Regarded (New York) (2024)
Litigation: General Commercial: The Elite (Washington, D.C.) (2024) -
Benchmark LitigationRecommended – Dispute Resolution — California; New York (2024)
Highly Recommended – Dispute Resolution — District of Columbia (2024) -
Best Law FirmsAdvertising Law – Colorado (2024)
Litigation - Intellectual Property – Chicago; Colorado; National; Washington, D.C.; New York; San Francisco (2024)
Litigation - Patent – Chicago, National, Los Angeles (2024)
Trademark – National, New York, Los Angeles (2024)
Copyright – National, New York (2024)
Corporate Law – National, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco) (2024)
Public Finance – National, Washington, D.C. (2024)
Commercial Litigation – National, Colorado, Chicago, Houston, Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco (2024)
Bet-the-Company Litigation – Chicago, Colorado, San Francisco (2024)
Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Defendant—National, New York (2024)
Product Liability Litigation - Defendants -
BTI Consulting GroupClass Action Leaders (2024)
Most Feared in Litigation (2024) -
LMG Life Sciences GuideCorporate (2024)
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The Legal 500 USAdvertising and Marketing: Transactional and Regulatory (2024)
Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action — Defense: Consumer Products (Including Tobacco) (2022 - 2024)
Product Liability and Mass Tort Defense: Consumer Products (including tobacco) (2023)
Patent Litigation: Full Coverage (2024)
Patents: Prosecution (including Re-Examination and Post-Grant Proceedings) (2024)
Intellectual Property: Copyright (2024)
Trademarks: Litigation (2024)
Intellectual Property: Trademark, Copyright & Trade Secrets (USA) (2023)
Intellectual Property: Patent (USA) (2023)
M&A: Middle-Market (sub-$500m) (2024)
M&A/Corporate and Commercial: Private Equity Buyouts (2024)
General Commercial Disputes (2024)