DoJ Antitrust Chief Plans to Leave This Year

Apparently, Sharis Pozen, the Justice Department’s chief antitrust enforcer, is preparing to leave her post, likely as soon as this spring.

Pozen, who has served as the acting head of the department’s Antitrust Division since August, is likely to return to private practice. Pozen has informed the White House of her intentions. During her short tenure, Pozen has overseen one of the department’s biggest merger challenges in a generation: its successful bid to block AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA.

The leading candidate to replace Pozen is William J. Baer, head of the antitrust group at the law firm Arnold & Porter and a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s competition bureau. Antitrust experts say that Baer would continue the government’s reinvigorated enforcement of the antitrust laws.