Justice Alito Biggest Business Champion
On a current U.S. Supreme Court known for its pro-business views, Justice Samuel Alito, in his first full year on its bench, stands out as the biggest champion of Big Business in recent memory.
As the current Supreme Court term concludes this week, Alito, 57, gets star billing in what Robin Conrad, an official with the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, describes as an “absolutely stellar” term that exceeds any other in his department’s 30-year history, reports Bloomberg.
Alito is clearly the justice friendliest to corporate interests, siding with the chamber, the nation’s biggest business lobby, in 13 of 14 cases, and voting to reduce government regulation, limit punitive damages and make it harder for consumers, employees and investors to sue over alleged wrongdoing by corporate America.
“On the cases where it’s possible to differentiate the justices, he’s been on the pro-business side every time,” says Roy Englert of Robbins Russell Englert Orseck & Untereiner, who won a Supreme Court telecommunications case this year.
Maureen Mahoney of Latham & Watkins, who won three Supreme Court cases this term, also talked with Bloomberg. “I always thought of the Rehnquist court as a good forum for business,” she says. “I think we now know that the Roberts court is even better.”
