X Corp. has hired a former Texas assistant solicitor general and his Cedar Hill boutique to represent it in a lawsuit accusing a group of advertisers of antitrust violations for conspiring to boycott advertising on the social media site.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas and has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor. John Sullivan and Jace Yarbrough of S|L Law are representing X Corp. in the suit that names the World Federation of Advertisers, Unilever PLC, Unilever United States, Mars Incorporated, CVS Health Corporation and RSTED A/S as defendants.
“Acting with and through a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, the defendants conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter, Inc,” the 44-page lawsuit alleges. “Concerned that Twitter might deviate from certain brand safety standards for advertising on social media platforms set through GARM, the conspirators collectively acted to enforce Twitter’s adherence to those standards through the boycott.”
X alleges the advertising boycott targeting its platform that began in November 2022 and continues to this day was abrupt, “in lockstep,” and “against the unilateral self-interest of the advertisers.” The lawsuit alleges the Global Alliance for Responsible Media “celebrated” the effectiveness of the boycott.
The lawsuit comes less than a month after the House Judiciary Committee issued an interim staff report detailing the results of an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers and GARM.
“That report concluded: ‘The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms. The information uncovered to date of WFA and GARM’s collusive conduct to demonetize disfavored content is alarming,’” X told the court in the lawsuit.
According to LinkedIn, Sullivan launched his own firm in 2021 after two stints at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius totaling six years. He served as an assistant solicitor general from 2017 until 2019. He is a former law clerk for Judge Edith H. Jones of the Fifth Circuit and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Yarbrough joined S|L Law in April 2023, after working as a litigation associate at Quinn Emanuel and Baker Botts. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a former officer in the United States Air Force.
A search of federal court records indicates this lawsuit is the second one filed by X that has been assigned to Judge O’Connor. The first was filed by the social media company in November against Media Matters calling the outlet a “self-proclaimed media watchdog that decided it would not let the truth get in the way of a story it wanted to publish about X Corp.”
Sullivan is also representing X Corp in the litigation against Media Matters.
“Looking to portray X’s social networking platform as being dominated by ‘white nationalist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,’ Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” X alleges in that lawsuit. “Media Matters designed both these images and its resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”
X filed that lawsuit against Media Matters the same day Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he had launched an investigation into whether the entity had “fraudulently manipulated data” on X.
The litigation stems from a report Media Matters published in November that accused X of placing advertisements from several well-known companies next to “pro-Nazi content.” Many of those companies — Apple, Comcast, NBCUniversal and IBM among them — withdrew all ads from the platform in response.
In the suit against the advertisers, X is also represented by Christopher G. Renner, Jonathan M. Shaw, Andrew K. Mann and Harmeet K. Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group in Alexandria, Virginia and San Francisco.
Defense counsel had not filed an appearance as of press time.
The case number is 7:24-cv-00114.