A key adviser to President-elect Barack Obama on the antitrust front has been Harvard University Law School professor Einer Elhauge, who may be interested in trading life in the ivory tower for a spot inside the Beltway. Elhauge spoke at Obama fundraisers, and some members of the antitrust bar think he's likely to take one of the nation's top antitrust jobs.
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Merger law is enforced by two agencies: the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission, a bipartisan panel of five members whose terms are staggered. There has been a vacancy for nearly a year, and under the rules of the agency, Chairman Bill Kovacic, a former professor from George Washington University School of Law, will resign from his chairmanship, though he is expected to remain on the commission for at least four more years. That means Obama will be able to appoint a chairman, either by adding a new commissioner, or by designating one of the current commissioners as the head of the agency.
While Independent Pamela Jones Harbour generally votes Democratic, Jon Leibowitz is the only named Democrat currently at the agency. In recent years, it's been common to appoint an antitrust scholar to run the agency, though Kovacic's predecessor, Deborah Platt Majoras, was a partner at the Jones Day law firm before her appointment. Majoras was an unusual pick in another way; the other three of the last four chairmen had worked at the FTC previously. Majoras was a former DOJ enforcer, having been both deputy and acting assistant attorney general for antititrust.
Even though it would be more unusual for a scholar to run DOJ's antitrust division, it wouldn't be out of place. Today, there's a much greater interest in combining antitrust legal precedent with economic theories and studies than ever before. And Elhauge's resume includes a brief stint in DOJ's Office of the Solicitor General. - Cecile Kohrs Lindell
Cecile Kohrs Lindell is a senior reporter in The Deal's Washington bureau.
