Neil Averitt

Mr. Neil Averitt is an attorney specializing in antitrust and consumer protection law. He attended Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School, where he was Note Editor on the Law Review. After law school he clerked for the U.S. District Court in the Virgin Islands, then worked at Ropes & Gray in Boston, and then spent thirty-seven years at the Federal Trade Commission in a variety of positions. While at the FTC Mr. Averitt drafted the agency policy statement on "unfair acts or practices," played a central role in developing the agency position on state-action immunity for antitrust offenses, and became expert in the interpretation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. Congress used his interpretation as the basis for drafting the statutory powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After leaving the FTC in 2013, Mr. Averitt has been writing a column of opinion and analysis for the newsletter FTC:Watch, the leading independent newsletter focused exclusively on antitrust, consumer protection and privacy enforcement developments, initiated by the Federal Trade Commission, the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, and state Attorneys General