Food + Healthy Living

Businesses focused on food, restaurants, dietary supplements and healthy living come to Goodwin for leading expertise and a holistic suite of services. The Goodwin team assists with product labeling and advertising issues, trademark and patent issues, regulatory matters and agency investigations, and private equity and transactional advice. Our litigation work includes defending Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advertising complaints, enforcement actions and prosecutions, IP matters, consumer class actions and products liability matters, as well as counseling on risk management and litigation avoidance.

Our lawyers also work with private equity firms that focus on restaurants, dietary supplement marketers, specialty food manufacturers and other food businesses. We advise them on food industry issues and help them develop both investment and exit strategies.

Food and nutritional businesses also rely on us for corporate transactions, many of which involve vendor agreements, product line sales or acquisitions, reorganizations or financial restructuring, as well as intellectual property and employment issues.

We counsel clients on everything from nutritional supplements, food additives, functional foods and dietary supplements to herbs, natural/organic foods, and food packaging. As the science of food technology evolves, we’re working in emerging areas such as functional foods, nutraceuticals, antimicrobial “smart” packaging, genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Clients include manufacturers, marketers, wholesalers, retail companies, restaurants, and industry organizations.

Chambers USA

Nationally Ranked for Food and Beverages: Regulatory and Litigation.

In the face of a competitive marketplace, elite private equity firms expect counsel with extensive experience and a stable of blue chip relationships. That’s why private equity firms have been entrusting their deals to Goodwin for decades. Our Private Equity team ranks as one of the top in the United States, and we are on a trajectory of rapid ascent, both in the U.S. and worldwide. The group is a market leader in the expansive middle market sector, having earned a reputation for notable buyouts, growth equity deals and growth company representations in key sectors such as technology, healthcare, financial and business services, consumer and manufacturing.

Companies facing products liability and mass tort litigation require experienced counsel with a sophisticated, multi-disciplinary practice. At the same time, the stakes for corporate defendants have grown to “bet the company” magnitude in many instances. Companies in these situations count on Goodwin to ensure their interests are optimally protected.

Over the past 25 years, Proposition 65 litigation has become a real threat to businesses providing goods and services in California. The potential costs faced by corporate defendants are high – massive civil penalties, mandatory warnings on their products and damage to a company’s brand. Many law firms can process Proposition 65 cases; very few can try them and win. Goodwin has quickly become preeminent among those few firms.

Private Equity

Products Liability + Mass Torts

Proposition 65 + Food Labeling Litigation