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US: Trump adds antitrust expert to Justice transition team

By  |  November 29, 2016

A Republican antitrust veteran has been named on Monday to US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team for the Justice Department, a choice that lawyers say signals a more hands-off approach to antitrust enforcement compared to Democratic President Barack Obama.

David Higbee, a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams, worked for President George W. Bush’s administration from 2001 to 2005, spending the last year in the Antitrust Division. Since then he has advised clients on merger reviews, antitrust litigation and government investigations.

Higbee joins Joshua Wright, an economist and former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, as the only two people on Trump’s transition team with a background in antitrust.

The Obama administration has challenged an unusually large number of mergers in the last few years, leading to the collapse of Halliburton plan to buy Baker Hughes, among others. Currently, the Justice Department is suing Anthem to prevent it from buying Cigna and Aetna to stop its purchase of Humana.

Full Content: Reuters

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