Biography: Competition

William J Baer, a partner at Arnold & Porter, heads up the firm's highly regarded antitrust group. He represents a broad range of companies in US and international cartel investigations, mergers and acquisition reviews by antitrust enforcers (US Federal Trade Commission, US Department of Justice, and the European Commission), and antitrust litigation. Recent clients include GE, Intel, TPG, Cisco, Dannon, Cardinal Health and Talecris. He divides his time between the firm's Washington, DC, and Brussels offices. In 2010 he was named one of 'The Decade's Most Influential Lawyers' by The National Law Journal. In 2006 and again in 2007, Mr Baer was named the leading competition lawyer in the world by Who's Who Legal.

From 1995 to 1999, he served as director of the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of competition. Among other matters, he oversaw the Commission's successful court challenges to the Staples/Office Depot and drug wholesaler mergers, review of Time Warner's acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System and the Ciba-Geigy/Sandoz merger, as well as challenges to exclusionary tactics of Toys-R-Us, Intel and Mylan Laboratories. He also served at the Federal Trade Commission from 1975 to 1980, where he held a number of positions, including attorney advisor to the chairman, and assistant general counsel and director of congressional relations.

Mr Baer is a frequent speaker at ABA, IBA, Practising Law Institute, American Antitrust Institute and other programmes and conferences in the US, Europe, Canada and Japan.

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