Thomas Barnett is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Covington & Burling and co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Consumer Law Practice Group. He specializes in global antitrust and competition law practice and works closely with the firm’s white collar practice on criminal antitrust enforcement and investigative matters. Mr. Barnett recently served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. He headed the Antitrust Division from 2005 to 2008, having previously served in the Division as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Enforcement from 2004 to 2005. During his tenure, Mr. Barnett was involved in some of the largest and most complicated criminal matters in the Division’s history, including investigations and prosecutions that involved coordination with multiple competition authorities in other jurisdictions. In the merger area, Mr. Barnett oversaw the review of all mergers investigated by the Division and supervised more than 30 cases filed in federal district court. He also oversaw an active competition advocacy program that included numerous amicus briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on antitrust issues and comments to a wide range of federal and state agencies. He argued before the U.S. Supreme Court as amicus on behalf of the United States in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and testified several times before Congressional committees. While at the Antitrust Division, Mr. Barnett worked with international antitrust authorities throughout the world and served in leadership positions in key international competition organizations, such as chairing the Working Party on International Cooperation and Enforcement of the OECD Competition Committee and serving on the Steering Committee of the International Competition Network. Mr. Barnett received the Edmund Randolph Award, the U.S. Department of Justice’s highest honor, for his service in the Division. Prior to 2004, Mr. Barnett was a leader in the firm’s Antitrust & Consumer Law Practice Group. He counseled Fortune 500 companies on all aspects of antitrust law and was involved in mergers and acquisitions, government antitrust investigations, and antitrust litigation involving a wide range of industries. He served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching a course on antitrust and intellectual property issues in sports in 2001 and 2003, and as a co-teacher of an advanced antitrust seminar at the University of Virginia Law School multiple times between 1991 and 2004.
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DOJ Provides Further Voluntary Disclosure Incentives, This Time Linked to M&A Transactions, and Signals Other Areas of Focus What You Need to Know On October 4, 2023, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco provided new and expanded policy guidance on corporate criminal enforcement, (...)
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On July 19, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (collectively, “the Agencies”) issued a new set of merger guidelines in draft form for public comment (the “Draft Guidelines”). The Draft Guidelines, if adopted, will replace the (...)
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On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), with the concurrence of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (together, “the Agencies”), issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “Notice”) that proposes extensive changes to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) (...)
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On April 28, 2023, Judge Victor A. Bolden of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut granted defendants’ Rule 29 Motion for Judgment of Acquittal in United States v. Patel, stymieing the Justice Department’s latest effort to prosecute agreements among competitors to (...)
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The U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the consolidated cases of Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran on Friday, April 14, 2023, holding that “the review schemes in the Exchange Act and FTC Act do not displace district court jurisdiction” over petitioners’ “far-reaching (...)
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Tuesday, January 18th, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) launched a joint public inquiry regarding the agencies’ horizontal and vertical merger guidelines. As part of this inquiry, the agencies are soliciting public comment via a (...)
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President Biden today signed an expansive Executive Order to promote competition that includes 72 initiatives targeting the labor, healthcare, agriculture, transportation, internet service, technology, and banking and consumer finance sectors. In the Order, President Biden calls on the (...)
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On December 10th, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice announced its first criminal indictment targeting an alleged conspiracy to reduce employee wages. The DOJ charged the former owner of a therapist staffing company with conspiring to reduce pay rates for healthcare (...)
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The Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition issued another reminder yesterday that the COVID-19 pandemic does not exempt companies from complying with federal antitrust laws. The agencies’ latest statement focuses on the labor force and (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2020 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. Appellate and Supreme Court On May 13, 2019, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) announced its 5-4 decision in Apple, Inc. v. Pepper, permitting iPhone users to (...)
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Yesterday, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it has settled its lawsuit against ValueAct Capital Management L.P. (“ValueAct”) for violating the Hart- Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR Act”). The settlement is noteworthy for two (...)
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The Federal Trade Commission has brought its first suit alleging anticompetitive conduct in connection with the prosecution and settlement of pharmaceutical patent litigation since the Supreme Court’s June 2013 decision in FTC v. Actavis. Although two commissioners dissented from the decision (...)
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On Monday, June 17, the Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. __ (2013) (“FTC Slip Op.”), addressed whether “reverse payment” settlements of Hatch-Waxman ANDA patent litigation “unreasonably diminish competition in violation of the antitrust laws.” FTC Slip Op. at 1. In a 5-3 (...)
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Yesterday, the influential Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, held that foreign anticompetitive conduct can be regulated by U.S. antitrust law if it has “a reasonably proximate causal nexus” with an injury to a U.S. purchaser. The Seventh Circuit explicitly rejected the (...)
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On July 7, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (“the Agencies”) announced significant changes to the form and accompanying materials that companies must submit when reporting transactions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (“HSR Act”). Although (...)
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Last week, the U.S. Justice Department (“DOJ”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (together, the “Agencies”) issued revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) describing how the Agencies seek to determine whether a merger of competing companies will substantially lessen (...)
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In the latest development in the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to challenge Hatch-Waxman patent litigation settlements, earlier this week a federal district court in Pennsylvania denied in part defendants’ motions to dismiss antitrust complaints challenging a series of such settlements. (...)
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The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has announced new monetary thresholds for the Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) Act effective February 22, 2010. See 75 Fed. Reg. 3468 (Jan. 21, 2010). The new thresholds will be approximately 3% lower than those currently in effect. For example, the minimum (...)
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Unilateral action presents some of the most difficult challenges in the enforcement of the competition laws. Agencies, courts, and academic scholars have expended significant effort in recent years to provide greater clarity and guidance on competition law compliance in this area. These (...)
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You have been trained in both areas of Law and Economics and you have spent training years both in the United States and in Britain. Can you highlight your inspiration during those university years ? Who were your intellectual mentors ? What caused you to chose antitrust as your professional (...)
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William E. Kovacic : An Antitrust Tribute Liber Amicorum Vol. I
