in favor of the plaintiff athlete classes, which included an injunction barring the NCAA and its member conferences from limiting the amount of education-related compensation that Division I college basketball and FBS football players could receive. Following this win and as its next step in protecting the rights of amateur athletes, a Kessler-led Winston team has joined the House litigation as co-lead plaintiff’s counsel. The student athlete plaintiffs in House allege that NCAA’s rules limiting student athletes from profiting from their name, image, and/or likeness (NIL) violated antitrust law by prohibiting them from earning NIL-related compensation until July 1, 2021, and continue to do so by imposing anticompetitive restrictions via NCAA’s current NIL policy. Plaintiffs seek monetary damages for previous denial of these rights and an injunction restraining the NCAA from enforcing current rules. Kessler has achieved other recent wins in significant antitrust cases, including (1) on behalf of Panasonic, sustaining Panasonic’s efforts to oppose the motion of Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs to achieve class certification in In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation multidistrict litigation. and (2) on behalf of NTN Corporation, successfully arguing on behalf of all defendants in In re Bearings, which is part of the In re Auto Parts Antitrust MDL—one of the largest series of antitrust cases in U.S. history—the only class certification motion heard by the court in any of the MDL proceedings to date, a win recognized by Global Competition Review as its “Antitrust Case of the Year.” Since joining Winston, Kessler has also continued to handle numerous disputes on behalf of the NBPA and NFLPA and the high-profile athletes they represent, including representing New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in successfully contesting at the district court level, a four-game suspension, imposed by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in connection with the “Deflategate” controversy. Kessler led the team in a case that made national headlines in the United States for the NFLPA, scoring an historic victory for the NFLPA and NFL players Scott Fujita, Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith and Jonathan Vilma in the so-called “Bountygate” controversy. The victory allowed the players to rejoin their teams after an arbitration vacated the suspensions issued by Roger Goodell for allegedly participating in a program which rewarded players for knocking out their opponents. Kessler’s representation of players’ unions continued through the NFLPA’s and the NBPA’s most recent collective bargaining negotiations, as well as through the COVID-19 pandemic, during which