If some in-house lawyers were breathing a sigh of relief early this year after the Federal Trade Commission essentially gave Google Inc. a pass following a lengthy antitrust investigation, their relief may have been blunted by an event just a few days earlier. In the waning days of 2012 December the Senate confirmed Arnold & Porter’s William Baer as the new chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division. on Sunday, to the delight of many in the antitrust bar who have widely lauded his qualifications for the job.
The choice was generally interpreted by the antitrust bar as an indication proof that the second Obama administration had no intention of wasn’t going soft. Allan Van Fleet, a former chair of the American Bar Association’s antitrust law section, says the opposite was true administration remains committed to competition. "The message to antitrust practitioners and companies wondering what this means to compliance: I don’t see any letting up off the pedal by the administration," says Van Fleet, a partner in the Houston office of McDermott Will & Emery. "I see aggressive enforcement action continuing."
