Christopher Wheeler litigates high-stakes, complex civil cases with a focus on antitrust.

The editor-in-chief of the leading California antitrust treatise, California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law, Chris represents both defendants and plaintiffs in class and competitor cases.  He currently is representing defendants, including two Fortune 50 companies, in multiple antitrust class actions in federal court. 

In the landmark antitrust class action against Sutter Health, the dominant hospital system in Northern California, Chris led the Farella team that, along with the California Attorney General and co-counsel, obtained a $575,000,000 settlement and historic injunctive relief on behalf of a certified class of California employers, government entities, and union trusts.  The settlement represents the largest all-cash settlement in the history of California state court.  Chris received the American Antitrust Institute’s Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Private Law Practice award for his work on Sutter.

State attorneys general across the nation have recognized Chris’s antitrust expertise, retaining him in connection with both merger and conduct cases.  The Rhode Island Attorney General retained Chris to lead the antitrust investigation of the $4 billion merger between the two largest health systems in Rhode Island.  Following the Attorney General’s administrative decision denying the merger, the transacting parties abandoned the proposed transaction.

Named a “California Lawyer Attorney of the Year” by the Daily Journal, Chris has demonstrated his commitment to obtaining the best possible results for his clients in a broad range of civil litigation matters over more than two decades of practice.  He successfully defended a leading Silicon Valley fintech company in a patent license arbitration against a competitor—backed by one of the world’s largest private equity firms—that was seeking tens of millions of dollars in unpaid royalties.  Following three years of litigation and an evidentiary hearing lasting 25 days, the arbitrator sanctioned the competitor for more than it recovered in unpaid royalties.  In a recent nine-figure LLC dispute Chris handled, the cross-defendant settled for less than 0.8% of claimed damages days before trial.

Chris brings an economics and market regulation background to his antitrust and complex litigation practice.  During the 2008-2009 U.S. financial crisis, Chris served as vice president and deputy director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, where he led one of the first investigations into the regulatory failures contributing to the crisis.  He began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Chris has prosecuted and tried to verdict a number of criminal cases as a “loaner” Assistant District Attorney in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.  As a Bar Association of San Francisco’s Federal Pro Bono Project participant, Chris maintains an active pro bono practice.  He has represented an indigent family in an unlawful detainer action, a victim of elder abuse, and a family-run business in an ERISA action.  Chris also has won political asylum for refugee families, including a Laotian Hmong veteran of the CIA “secret army” and his wife and three generations of survivors of the Liberian civil war.

Chris is a member of the Executive Committee of the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section of the California Lawyers Association.  He is chair of the Antitrust and Business Regulation Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco.  Chris serves on the Executive Committee of the Harvard Law School Association and is a past president of the Harvard Law School Association of Northern California.  At Farella, he serves on the New Business and Partnership Admissions committees.