Dennis J. Lynch

Dennis J. Lynch practices in the Firm’s Business and Commercial Litigation Group and as a member of the group’s Antitrust Team. The majority of his practice is devoted to complex civil and antitrust litigation.

His antitrust litigation experience over the past twenty years has primarily involved his representing clients -- from major Fortune 50 companies to small privately held businesses -- in complex antitrust and commercial litigation in courts throughout the United States. Dennis has represented clients in antitrust matters involving a diverse array of industries and businesses, including chemicals, herbicides, textiles, trucking, rail, ocean shipping, transportation and logistics, automotive manufacturing, food and beverage products, food and beverage manufacturing and processing, commodity meat proteins, household product manufacturing, forest and paper products, nationwide retail, and mattress manufacturing. The primary focus of Dennis’s practice is on representing, as plaintiffs, companies that seek to recover damages because they were significant purchasers of products or services impacted by price-fixing, bid-rigging, customer allocation, and/or other violations of federal and state antitrust laws. His clients range from major Fortune 50 companies to small privately held businesses.

In addition to his complex antitrust and commercial litigation practice, Dennis regularly advises clients on a wide range of issues relating to federal and state antitrust laws and compliance, as well as representing the governmental litigation interests of corporate clients. His practice also includes trucking and transportation litigation.

Dennis attended the Villanova University Honors Program, graduating in 1986. He worked as a book editor for Texas A&M University Press before and while attending South Texas College of Law Houston, graduating in 2000. He spent his last semester of law school as a visiting student at the University of South Carolina School of Law, before beginning his law career at the Columbia, South Carolina, office of Maynard Nexsen’s predecessor, Nexsen Pruet, in 2000.

Community & Professional

• American Bar Association
• South Carolina Bar
• Richland County Bar Association
• South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association (SCDTAA); Vice Chair, SCDTAA Trucking Substantive Law Committee
• South Carolina Trucking Association
• Wood Inn, South Texas Honors Chapter of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity

Outside Maynard Nexsen

Dennis and his wife, Sara, have two children. When not in the office, he enjoys spending time with his family, whether golfing with his son, fly fishing and hiking in the North Carolina mountains, or lazing at the beach.

• Prosecution and settlement of claims in MDL 1516, In re Polyester Staple Fiber Antitrust Litigation, on behalf of more than twenty textile, non-woven, and carpet companies located in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina for alleged price-fixing and customer allocation.

• Prosecution and settlement of claims of fifteen major companies (including Fortune 500 consumer products, food and retail companies, and diverse non-vessel operating common carriers) in their lawsuit seeking to recover damages caused by an alleged six-year conspiracy to fix rates and surcharges on ocean shipping between the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

• Prosecution and settlement of claims of four plaintiff bedding companies which were impacted by an alleged ten-year conspiracy to fix the prices of polyurethane foam in connection with MDL 2196, In re Polyurethane Foam Antitrust Litigation.

• Representation of companies which were injured by an alleged conspiracy of the four major class 1 railroads in the U.S. to raise rail freight rates through the adoption of stand-alone revenue-based fuel surcharges in connection with MDL 1869, In re Rail Freight Surcharge Antitrust Litigation.

• Class counsel for a certified class of timber owners in four states in the Southeast U.S. in a case alleging price suppression of pulpwood timber purchased by the world’s largest paper and wood products company.  After a litigation class was certified, the Court approved a class settlement of $12.4 million.

• Part of defense team for two lawsuits filed by a major multi-national chemical company seeking in excess of a billion dollars in damages for alleged anticompetitive practices against our client, a major producer of herbicides and herbicide-resistant seeds.

• Lead counsel in constitutional challenge to and settlement of local government amendment to a business license fee ordinance, on behalf of a large international manufacturer.

• Represented incumbent mayor in primary election dispute.

  Columbia Business Monthly's Legal Elite of the Midlands, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023

Led and sat on various S.C. Defense Trial Association panels on transportation law;

Conducted Antitrust Compliance seminars for firm corporate clients. 

Co-Authored "Should Major Customers Opt-out of or Exclude Themselves from Antitrust Class Actions?" for the March 2017 ACC Newsletter.