Sharis Arnold Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the appointment of Sharis Arnold Pozen as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Pozen will become Acting Assistant Attorney General upon the departure of Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney. Pozen came to the department’s Antitrust Division in February 2009, as Chief of Staff and Counsel, and has served as a key deputy to Varney.

Pozen is instrumental in the overall enforcement and management of the division and played a leading role on several matters, including in the healthcare, technology, energy and agriculture industries. This includes the department’s pending lawsuit against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), which alleges that BCBSM’s agreements with hospitals stifle competition, and a settlement with United Regional Health Care System of Wichita Falls, Texas, that prohibited anticompetitive contracts with health insurers–the first case brought by the department since 1999 that challenged a monopolist with engaging in traditional anticompetitive unilateral conduct.

Pozen was the lead antitrust official for the CPTN Holdings LLC and Novell Inc. matter in which the division required the companies to change the terms of their proposed merger in order to address open source concerns. Pozen was also an important principal in the department’s update of the Horizontal Merger Guidelines and its revision of the division’s Merger Remedy Guidelines.