Biography: Competition

John D Harkrider left Skadden, Arps in 1995 to become a founding partner and now co-chair of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider's antitrust practice. His practice concentrates on mergers, litigation and counselling. In the merger context, he advised Google in its US$12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility as well as its US$700 million acquisition of ITA, SunGard in its US$1.6 billion sale of SunGard Higher Education to Datatel, XLHealth in its US$2.2 billion sale to United Health, Thermo Fisher Scientific in its US$2.1 billion acquisition of Dionex, Bemis in its US$1.2 billion acquisition of the Food Americas' assets of Alcan, Cingular in its US$41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless, BellSouth in its US$67 billion acquisition by AT&T, Omnicare in its hostile takeover of both Pharmerica and NeighborCare, and Harcourt General with respect to its US$4.5 billion sale to Reed Elsevier and Thompson.

In litigation, he represented both Tyson and George's with respect to Tyson's sale of assets to George's in the Western District of Virginia, SunGard in the District of Columbia against a challenge by the Department of Justice to enjoin its acquisition of Comdisco, Omnicare with respect to its Section One conspiracy claims against United Health in both the Northern District of Illinois and the Seventh Circuit, Harcourt General in defense of monopolisation claims against APTS in the Ninth Circuit, United Technologies Corporation in connection with Walker Process and Handgards claims in the Northern District of Illinois, and the District of Maryland and IBP in opposition class certification in the Middle District of Alabama. In counselling, he has advised MasterCard's board of directors with respect to their IPO as well as the board of directors of a major European air cargo company with respect to possible criminal liability. In addition, Mr Harkrider represented the US Department of Justice in its investigation and suit to enjoin WorldCom's US$120 billion attempted acquisition of Sprint.

Mr Harkrider has appeared before the Canadian Bureau of Competition, the Office of Fair Trade, the UK Competition Commission and the French Competition Authority.

In 2004, Mr Harkrider gave the Milton Handler Annual Antitrust Review. He has published extensively on antitrust including "Lessons from the Great Depression" (Antitrust, Spring 2009), "Antitrust Enforcement During the Bush Administration: An Econometric Estimation" and "Risk-Shifting Provisions and Antitrust Risk: An Empirical Examination" (Antitrust , Fall 2005) and "Proving Anticompetitive Impact: Moving Past Merger Guidelines Presumptions" (2004 Milton Handler Antitrust Review, 2005; Columbia Business Law Review 317, 2005).

Mr Harkrider obtained his law degree in 1991 from the University of California Hastings College of the Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif. He also obtained his BA from the Honors College at the University of Michigan in 1988, where he graduated with highest honours. He also went through a PhD programme at the University of Michigan (did not complete dissertation) and was lead editor on Econometrics: Legal, Practical and Technical Issues, published by the ABA.

He has been on the editorial board of Antitrust (ABA) from 2007 to present, and was the vice-chair of the economics committee of the antitrust section from 2003 to 2006.