Christopher Essig is a partner in Winston & Strawn’s litigation department who has considerable experience in the areas of class actions, product liability, intellectual property, antitrust and general commercial litigation.

Mr. Essig currently is defending Philip Morris USA Inc. in a consumer fraud class action involving claims totaling over $1 billion based on the allegation that Philip Morris USA violated state consumer fraud claims by selling “light” cigarettes to consumers.

Mr. Essig has experience, including trial experience, representing major pharmaceutical companies in nationwide products liability class actions involving multidistrict litigation in both state and federal courts. His experience includes significant roles on trial defense teams in various jurisdictions for clients such as Pfizer Inc. and Wyeth. Specifically, Mr. Essig recently was part of a national trial team, which represented Pfizer Inc. in COX-2 pharmaceutical cases that were selected for trial.

Mr. Essig also has experience representing multinational corporate clients in pharmaceutical patent infringement litigation surrounding the filing of Abbreviated New Drug Applications and the Hatch-Waxman Act. Currently, Mr. Essig represents Teva Pharmaceuticals in patent infringement actions involving several different pharmaceutical products.

Finally, Mr. Essig has antitrust litigation experience. He has been part of core trial teams for the first two consummated merger cases tried in administrative hearings before the Federal Trade Commission in over two decades (In re Chicago Bridge and Iron Company and In re Evanston Northwestern Healthcare).

Mr. Essig received a B.A. in Political Science from Miami University in 1996 and a J.D., with honors, from The Ohio State University College of Law in 2000, where he was associate editor of The Ohio State Law Journal.