Legal News

Meet Richard Feinstein, the New Antitrust Head at the FTC

By Ashby Jones

It’s something the nation’s antitrust professors tend to mention during the first week of class: the nation’s antitrust laws are enforced by two agencies: the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. As a result, antitrust lawyers are well-advised to familiarize themselves with the backgrounds and mindsets of two people specifically: the head of the antitrust division at the DOJ, and the director of the bureau of competition at the FTC.

They’ve had a few months now to get acquainted with the new antitrust head at the DOJ, Christine Varney (click here and here for earlier posts on the Varney appointment). And now, they can get acquainted with Richard Feinstein, an antitrust specialist at Boies, Schiller & Flexner in Washington. On Tuesday, Feinstein was appointed director of the bureau of competition at the FTC. Click here for the FTC’s announcement.

Prior to joining Boies Schiller, Feinstein (Yale, Boston College Law) worked as a lawyer at the FTC, focusing on antitrust enforcement within the health-care industry. He’s also worked in the antitrust division of the DOJ and at McKenna & Cuneo.

During Varney’s confirmation hearings, she made some comments on how the division under her might differ from the division under her predecessor, saying she was open to retrospectively studying the effects of approved mergers.

We ran the same question by Feinstein recently. He said he didn’t think the FTC was looking to dramatically change its posture going forward. “The FTC is looking to stay active and aggressive,” he said. “I’m not sure there’s going to be a dramatic change in the FTC’s agenda going forward.” Feinstein added that the current FTC chairman, Jon Liebowitz, has said he’s looking for continuity. “I imagine continuity is largely what we’ll have,” said Feinstein.

In other FTC news, Liebowitz appointed Georgetown Law professor David Vladeck to serve as the agency’s director of the bureau of consumer protection.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).