Profile: Mark C Schechter

Competition

Biography: Competition

Mark Schechter, a senior partner in Howrey's antitrust practice and a former top enforcer at the US Department of Justice's antitrust division, is among America's foremost antitrust lawyers. He specialises in antitrust counselling and the defence of corporations in mergers and civil and criminal antitrust matters before the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and foreign competition enforcement authorities.

Mr Schechter has led a number of the cases that have shaped the modern antitrust enforcement landscape, including Boeing's merger with McDonnell Douglas, GTE's challenge to the merger of WorldCom and MCI, the American Airlines/British Airways alliance and opposition to an expanded SkyTeam alliance, Bertelsmann's music joint venture with Sony, and Whirlpool's successful acquisition of Maytag. He was one of the designers of the antitrust division's corporate leniency policy and among the first defence lawyers in America to secure amnesty from criminal prosecution under the programme. He has since been involved in numerous major DoJ cartel investigations, including the milk and DRAM cases, and in follow-on civil class action cases, including the air cargo and digital music cases.

Mr Schechter was awarded by the attorney general the Department of Justice's John Marshall Award for outstanding legal achievement. He has been recognised for his work in private practice by Global Counsel 3000, Chambers Global The World's Leading Lawyers, Chambers USA America's Leading Business Lawyers, Global Competition Review's International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and International Who's Who of Competition Lawyers, Who's Who Legal The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and Washington, DC Super Lawyers' The Best Lawyers in America.