Baer Said Under Review to Become New U.S. Antitrust Chief
January 28, 2012, 3:40 PM ESTBy Sara Forden and Jeff Bliss
(Updates with comments from former FTC official in sixth paragraph.)
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- William Baer, whose law firm championed AT&T Inc.’s failed bid to acquire T-Mobile USA Inc., is the top candidate to head the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division, two people familiar with the situation said.
Baer, 61, who leads the antitrust group at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, is the subject of a background investigation for the job by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is confidential.
The White House is vetting Baer for the post after Sharis Pozen, acting chief of the division, said Jan. 23 she will leave her position on April 30.
Baer, named one of the “Decade’s Most Influential Lawyers” by the National Law Journal in 2010, is a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s competition bureau and has represented corporate clients including General Electric Company, Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. in private practice.
“He has a fantastic reputation in the antitrust bar,” said Kenneth Glazer, who served as deputy director of the competition bureau after Baer had left. “He’s one of the heavyweights -- very strong in terms of his litigations and also in terms of his policy judgment.”
Baer and Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on the potential nomination in separate e- mails.
AT&T Counsel
Arnold & Porter was lead outside counsel advising AT&T in its proposed $39 billion buyout of Deutsche Telekom AG’s T- Mobile USA unit. Baer’s colleagues Richard Rosen and Donna Patterson handled the transaction, which the Justice Department sued to block Aug. 31. AT&T abandoned the deal Dec. 19 after meeting opposition from regulators.
Baer’s name first surfaced as the potential nominee for the division head when Obama took office, said Andrew Gavil, an antitrust law professor at Howard University in Washington.
“The focus on him is not at all new,” Gavil said. Had the AT&T case dragged on, consideration of Baer would have been “problematic,” he said.
Established Tradition
If Baer is nominated, the selection would follow a tradition established by the last several administrations of choosing someone from a major law firm to head the division, he said.
Baer also might help bridge differences between the FTC and the Justice Department, which share responsibility for enforcing antitrust laws, said Spencer Waller, an antitrust law professor at Loyola University in Chicago.
The relationship between the two agencies “has been frayed at times in the past few years,” he said.
As a nominee, Baer might be delayed from assuming the post by Senate Republicans, who are considering whether to refuse to move administration appointees through the chamber in response to Obama making appointments during a congressional recess, Gavil said.
--Editors: Fred Strasser, Justin Blum
To contact the reporters on this story: Sara Forden in Washington at sforden@bloomberg.net; Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
