Ted Banks concentrates his practice on antitrust, compliance, food law, and other corporate matters. Mr. Banks has extensive experience with corporate litigation, including responsibility for contested mergers, environmental contamination, advertising, insurance coverage, products liability, employment law, consumer protection, and packaging and recycling. He has a national reputation for work in corporate compliance and antitrust, and was an early proponent of corporate opt-out suits as plaintiff in antitrust litigation, such as Vitamin, Carbon Dioxide, Corrugated Container, Folding Carton, and Citric Acid Antitrust Litigation, recovering more than $100 million. Through his experience in all aspects of the food industry, Mr. Banks has deep familiarity with the regulatory frameworks and state and federal laws governing food manufacture, distribution, sales, and safety.
He has successfully managed business and legal challenges over the course of his career, including at Kraft Foods, where he was Chief Counsel - Global Compliance after serving as Associate General Counsel with responsibility for antitrust, general litigation, corporate transactions, sales, legal computer applications and public policy coordination. While at Kraft, Mr. Banks negotiated more than 50 major corporate transactions, including a $19 billion acquisition and an $8 billion IPO. He has advised a 5,000 member corporate sales division on pricing, distribution, and marketing issues and has assisted many corporations, large and small, in developing corporate compliance programs, including formulation of risk assessment, policy creation and program development.
Mr. Banks has been appointed as a corporate compliance monitor by the Federal Trade Commission and Competition Bureau of Canada to oversee compliance programs of respondent companies. He has developed records management systems for global organizations, including the design of document management, electronic discovery and legal hold applications.
Mr. Banks has been recognized as an Illinois "Super Lawyer" in the field of corporate governance and compliance, is a "Leading Lawyer" in Antitrust and Publicly Held Corporation Law, and is "AV Preeminent" peer review rated by Martindale-Hubbell. Mr. Banks is an adjunct professor of law at Loyola University Law School, teaching corporate compliance. He was recognized by the national Law Journal as a "Compliance Trailblazer and Pioneer," and was awarded the distinguishable Alumni Award from the University of Denver.
Mr. Banks has been a leader in bar and community organizations. Mr. Banks founded and served as first chair of the North Shore Compliance Officers' Roundtable, and is a member of the steering committee of the Chicago Regional Business Ethics Network. He is pro bono General Counsel of Keep Chicago Beautiful and treasurer of the Jewish National Fund-USA. He previously served as a board member of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Mr. Banks is also an active member of the American Bar Association and the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics.
Mr. Banks received a B.A. from Beloit College in 1972. He graduated from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 1975, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Denver Journal of International Law & Policy.
