Antitrust Division Announces New Leadership Team

This posting was written by Jeffrey May, Editor of CCH Trade Regulation Reporter.

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division has announced a new leadership team, naming four new deputy assistant attorneys general.

Molly S. Boast, currently a partner at the New York Law firm of Debovoise & Plimpton LLP and a former Director of the FTC Bureau of Competition, will be one of two deputies who will oversee civil matters.

William Cavenaugh Jr., of the New York law firm of Patterson, Kelknap, Webb & Tyler LLP, will be the other deuputy. In his 24 years with the firm, Cavenaugh served as the Co-Chair of the firm, Chair of the Litigation Department, and a Litigation partner. He has extensive trial and litigation experience in complex antitrust, patent and commercial matters.

Philip J. Weiser, who is currently a Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Colorado, will return to the Antitrust Division in July as Assistant Attorney General for for International, Policy, and Appellate Matters. Weiser was a Senior Counsel to Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein in the late 1990s.

Carl Shapiro is already at work as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis. He is taking a leave of absence from the University of California at Berkeley, where he is Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy in the Haas School of Business and a Professor of Economics. Shapiro was the Antitrust Division's Economics Deputy from August 1995 to June 1996.

Also noted in the announcement were the appointments of Sharis Arnold Pozen, the new Chief of Staff and Counsel, and Gene Kimmelman, the new Chief Counsel for Competition Policy and Intergovernmental Relations.

Before she came to the Department of Justice in February 2009, Pozen was a partner at the Washington, D.C. office of Hogan & Hartson. In her 14 years in the firm’s Antitrust, Competition, and Consumer Protection Group, Pozen worked on a variety of antitrust matters in the technology and healthcare industries.

Kimmelman most recently served as Vice President for Federal and International Affairs at Consumers Union (CU), the nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org. From 1995 to 2009, he directed CU's federal and international policy programs. Kimmelman is a recognized expert in telecommunications, Internet/media policy, product liability, and antitrust law, according to the Department of Justice.

A news release announcing the appointments appears here on the Department of Justice website.