New DOJ antitrust chief builds team from prior administrations

Gail Slater, the new head of antitrust enforcement at the U.S. Justice Department, plans to hire veterans of previous administrations under Barack Obama and Donald Trump to help her oversee cases and investigations in tech, healthcare, finance and other sectors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Slater, who was sworn in Wednesday as assistant attorney general for antitrust, will name as her top deputy Roger Alford, according to the people, who asked not to identified discussing confidential information. Alford is a Notre Dame University law professor who served in the DOJ during Trump’s first term as president as a liaison with international antitrust enforcers. Alford’s new role will put him first in line to take the lead on any matters in which Slater may be recused.

The other hires include Baker & McKenzie partner Mark Hamer and Apollo Global Management lawyer William Rinner, who will co-head civil antitrust enforcement, according to the people. Omeed Assefi, who has served as the DOJ’s acting antitrust head for about two months, will run criminal enforcement, while Chetan Sanghvi, a senior managing director of the consultancy NERA, will lead the division’s economic work, said the people.

Slater’s choices for her deputies shows she is keen on aggressive enforcement and also values extensive defense side experience. Slater’s predecessor who served in the Biden administration, Jonathan Kanter, took a hard line against deals and largely refused to settle merger cases, while Slater has said that such settlements — where companies agree to sell assets or avoid certain conduct — are valuable if done right.

None of Slater’s new team members have started in their roles. Rinner confirmed his pending job. Alford, Sanghvi and Hamer didn’t respond to requests for comment. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment.

Slater was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday in a bipartisan, 78-19 vote.

Slater will inherit a heavy litigation docket, including a high-profile restructuring of Alphabet Inc.’s Google following the Biden administration’s victory last year in which a federal judge ruled that the company illegally monopolized the online search market. The DOJ is looking to force a sale of Google’s Chrome internet browser and bar the company from paying for preferred placement on mobile devices. Other pending cases include lawsuits against Apple Inc., Visa Inc. and Live Nation Inc.

Prior roles

After leaving the DOJ before the end of the first Trump Administration, Alford consulted for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on his office’s antitrust case against Google over its advertising technology business. In its second lawsuit against Google, the DOJ wrapped up trial in its own ad tech case last year and is waiting for a ruling, while Texas and a group of states have a trial set for this summer.

Rinner served as chief of staff to Makan Delrahim, the DOJ’s antitrust head in the first Trump administration, while Hamer was a staff lawyer from 2010 to 2016, working on cases including the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against American Express Co.

Sanghvi previously did a pair of stints at the FTC, according to his NERA biography, and overlapped with Slater while they both worked for then Democratic Commissioner Julie Brill, where Sanghvi served as an economics adviser. He was also the agency’s lead economist on its challenge to the Whole Foods takeover of Wild Oats, which was ultimately settled.

In addition to ongoing lawsuits, Slater will need to tackle pending mergers, including Capital One Financial Corp.’s proposed acquisition of Discover Financial Services and T-Mobile U.S. Inc.’s acquisition of U.S. Cellular Corp., as well as ongoing probes of companies including UnitedHealth Group Inc.