Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
Svetlana S. Gans is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP where she helps clients navigate complex consumer protection, privacy, and competition related regulatory proceedings before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), , U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, State Attorneys General and other enforcement bodies. Ms. Gans also assists on litigation matters and provides strategic counseling and advice related to public policy issues.
Before joining Gibson Dunn, she served as the Vice President & Associate General Counsel at NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, where she helped lead the association’s consumer protection and competition policy work. Prior to joining NCTA, Ms. Gans served with distinction as Chief of Staff to Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen at the FTC. As the agency chief of staff, Ms. Gans managed and oversaw agency operations, including bureau and office heads reporting to the Chairman, a seven-member office staff, and an agency budget of over $300 million. She also served as the Acting Chairman’s key advisor on consumer protection and competition investigations and litigation, working with a diverse team of attorneys and economists to preserve competition and protect U.S. consumers. She created, executed, and oversaw several strategic initiatives for the agency, including the agency process reform, regulatory reform, and data security transparency initiatives. Previously, Ms. Gans had the unique experience of serving in both litigating bureaus of the FTC: the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Prior to her time in government, Ms. Gans worked as an antitrust associate at major law firms. Her practice focused on defending consumer product, financial services, and trade association clients in regulatory and private investigations alleging conspiracy and violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
Ms. Gans has been an active leader in the ABA Antitrust Law Section (“Section”) for two decades, and currently serves as the Section’s Marketing Officer. Ms. Gans helped create the Section’s Young Lawyer Representative Program, now in its 10th year, and the Section’s Law Ambassador Program, each aimed at developing and promoting the next generation of consumer protection and competition attorneys. Ms. Gans is also active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, currently serving as Co-Chair of the Diversity Pipeline Initiative and the Women’s Leadership Committee.
Ms. Gans received her law degree with high honors from the University of Denver College of Law. During law school, Ms. Gans served as a Judicial Intern to the Honorable John L. Kane, Jr. and as an Honors Program Paralegal for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Merger Taskforce. Ms. Gans earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Boston University.
U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah
Melissa Holyoak was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah on January 29, 2026. Holyoak was appointed on November 17, 2025 by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah.
Prior to that, Holyoak served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission from March 25, 2024 until her appointment as U.S. Attorney. During her FTC tenure, Commissioner Holyoak strove to vigorously enforce the antitrust and consumer protection laws while acting within the agency’s constitutional and statutory remit. She spoke widely about a range of FTC priorities, including improving competition enforcement, effectively applying existing laws to emerging trends in technology, and protecting children and teens online. She also published numerous statements about FTC matters.
Holyoak brings extensive experience as a litigator and leader. She served as Solicitor General with the Utah Attorney General’s Office where she oversaw the civil appeals, criminal appeals, constitutional defense and special litigation, and antitrust and data privacy divisions. She also managed multistate matters including those involving consumer protection and antitrust claims.
Before taking on that role, she served as president and general counsel of Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm and in other public interest attorney positions with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness. Holyoak represented class members challenging unfair class actions and consumers fighting regulatory abuse in federal district courts and appellate courts across the country.
Holyoak has argued in the Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and D.C. Circuits. She is a former prosecutor and attorney with O’Melveny & Myers LLP. She graduated from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in 2003 as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Law Review. Holyoak is a member of the bars of Utah, D.C., and Missouri (inactive). Her husband Dr. Joshua Holyoak is a urologist and together they have four beautiful children.
Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics and Kauffman Distinguished Research Scholar in Law, Economics, and Entrepreneurship, Yale Law School
Professor George L. Priest passed away on Dec. 17, 2024. Please read his obituary here.
George L. Priest is the Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics and Kauffman Distinguished Research Scholar in Law, Economics, and Entrepreneurship at Yale Law School. An internationally recognized expert, Professor Priest has focused his research over the past two decades on antitrust, the operation of private and public insurance, and the role of the legal system in promoting economic growth. He joined Yale Law School in 1981 and is co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Public Policy, which facilitates the scholarly work of the Yale law and economics faculty and supports student interest and research in the field. Before coming to Yale, Professor Priest taught law at the University of Chicago, SUNY/Buffalo, and UCLA. His subject areas are antitrust; capitalism; regulated industries; torts; and insurance and public policy. Professor Priest holds a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission; Former Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell
Mr. Leibowitz is a former partner in Davis Polk’s Washington DC and New York offices. His practice focuses on the complex antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions, as well as government and private antitrust investigations and litigation. He also provides counsel in the developing area of privacy law and with respect to advocacy involving Congress.
Mr. Leibowitz was Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2009 through 2013, and was noted for his bipartisanship. He served as a Commissioner from 2004 to 2009. While at the FTC, his priorities included health care and high-tech competition.
Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy, George Washington University Law School
Before joining the law school in 1999, William E. Kovacic was the George Mason University Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law. From January 2006 to October 2011, he was a member of the Federal Trade Commission and chaired the agency from March 2008 to March 2009. He was the FTC’s General Counsel from June 2001 to December 2004. In 2011 he received the FTC’s Miles W. Kirkpatrick Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Since August 2013, Professor Kovacic has served as a Non-Executive Director with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority. From January 2009 to September 2011, he was Vice-Chair for Outreach for the International Competition Network. He has advised many countries and international organizations on antitrust, consumer protection, government contracts, and the design of regulatory institutions.
At GW, Professor Kovacic has taught antitrust, contracts, and government contracts. He is co-editor (with Ariel Ezrachi) of the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement. His publications since returning to GW in 2011 include “Good Agency Practice and the Implementation of Competition Law” in European Yearbook of International Economic Law (Christoph Hermann ed. 2013); “Antitrust in High-Tech Industries: Improving the Federal Antitrust Joint Venture” in George Mason Law Review (2012); “Behavioral Economics: Implications for Regulatory Agency Behavior” in Journal of Regulatory Economics (2012) (with James Cooper); “Competition Agency Design: What’s on the Menu?” in European Competition Journal (2012) (with David Hyman); “Plus Factors and Agreement in Antitrust Law” in Michigan Law Review (2011) (with Robert Marshall, Leslie Marx & Halbert White); “Ensuring Integrity and Competition and Public Procurement Markets: A Dual Challenge for Good Governance” in The WTO Regime on Government Procurement: Challenge and Reform (Sue Arrowsmith & Robert Anderson, eds. 2011) (with Robert Anderson & Anna Caroline Mueller); “The International Competition Network: Its Past, Current, and Future Role” inMinnesota Journal of International Law (2011) (with Hugh Hollman); “The William Humphrey and Abram Myers Years: The FTC from 1925 to 1929” in Antitrust Law Journal (2011) (with Marc Winerman); Professor Kovacic also is co-author (with Andrew Gavil & Jonathan Baker) of Antitrust Law in Perspective: Cases, Concepts and Problems in Competition Policy (2d ed. 2008) and Antitrust Law & Economics in a Nutshell (5th ed. 2004) (with Ernest Gellhorn & Stephen Calkins).
President and Founder, Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC
Seth Bloom is the President and Founder of Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC. Mr. Bloom, the former long-time General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, is an attorney with extensive governmental and private sector experience in antitrust and competition law. He possesses substantial experience with the critical regulatory and competition issues facing key industries including telecommunications, media, Internet, and high tech; transportation and aviation; and health care.
Mr. Bloom has represented leading companies in these and other vital industries. These clients have included Comcast, Amazon, Aetna, MillerCoors LLC, Microsoft, Sprint, Masimo, Yelp, the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), and the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Since founding his firm in 2013, Mr. Bloom has quickly become one of the leading Washington attorneys representing companies in large and complex merger transaction, particularly before Congress. He has represented MillerCoors LCC in connection with the AB InBev/SABMiller merger; Aetna in connection with its proposed merger with Humana; Pfizer in connection with its proposed merger with Allergan; and Comcast in connection with its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Beyond his work for major companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, Mr. Bloom has represented Yelp on Internet competition issues, the medical device manufacturer Masimo with respect to its efforts to bring greater competition to hospital purchasing of medical devices; Microsoft on competition, and patent reform issues; Sprint on competition and telecom regulatory issues; and A2IM on copyright reform, music licensing and competition issues, among other matters. In July 2013, Mr. Bloom was named to the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute.
Prior to founding Bloom Strategic Counsel in March 2013, Mr. Bloom spent nearly 14 years working in the U.S. Senate on the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. He began as a counsel on the Antitrust Subcommittee staff of Sen. Kohl in 1999, who served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee during Mr. Bloom’s tenure. From 2008 to January 2013, Mr. Bloom served as General Counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. In August 2012, Mr. Bloom was named to the “Hill Hot List” by National Law Journal/Legal Times as one of the top 15 lawyers working in Congress.
Mr. Bloom was responsible for numerous critical antitrust and competition issues that came before the Antitrust Subcommittee during his tenure, from the AOL/Time Warner merger in 2000 to the Comcast/NBC Universal merger in 2010 and the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger in 2011. Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Kohl’s opposition to the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger was a key factor leading to the merger being blocked by the Justice Department and the FCC. Mr. Bloom was also the senior staffer on several landmark Antitrust Subcommittee investigations, including its 2011 investigation of allegations that Google was engaged in antitrust competitive conduct with respect to Internet search and its 2002-2004 of allegations of anticompetitive conduct in hospital purchasing of medical supplies. During his time on the antitrust subcommittee, Mr. Bloom investigated competitive conditions in numerous key industries, including telecom, high tech, media, aviation, health care, energy, and agriculture.
Mr. Bloom also was the staffer responsible for a number of significant legislative efforts sponsored by Senator Kohl, including the Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, the Preserve Affordable Access to Generic Drugs Act, the Discount Pricing Consumer Protection Act, and the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC). Each of these legislative efforts passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in several different Congresses.
Mr. Bloom has also been frequently been called on to serve as an expert speaker on critical issues of antitrust, competition, telecom, high tech, and health care policy to numerous trade, industry and legal groups, including the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, the American Antitrust Institute, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the conference of Western Attorneys General, among other organizations. He has also been quoted frequently in the press regarding critical antitrust and competition policy issues, including in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNBC, Reuters, FTC Watch, and National Public Radio.
Prior to beginning his service at the Senate in 1999, Mr. Bloom spent three years as a trial attorney at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. During his time at the Justice Department, he investigated numerous corporate mergers, and participated in litigation directed at the enforcement of the antitrust laws. Prior to that, Mr. Bloom spent eleven years as an attorney with Washington, DC law firms, practicing in the area of complex commercial litigation. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Rochester.
Co-Chair of the International Task Force, American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law
From 1981-83 Mr. Lipsky served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General under William F. Baxter, President Reagan's first chief antitrust enforcement official, who sparked profound antitrust-law changes. In that position Mr. Lipsky supervised Supreme Court litigation in a series of groundbreaking antitrust cases. He also supervised preparation of the 1982 Department of Justice Merger Guidelines, which profoundly altered and have since become the dominant model for antitrust analysis of mergers, acquisitions and other structural transactions throughout the world. He also organized and supervised the Antitrust Division's review of United States v. IBM Corp., which culminated in a joint stipulation of dismissal without prejudice of the marathon case in 1982. He served as co-chair of the Transition Team for the Federal Trade Commission following the election of President Donald Trump, and following his retirement in February, 2017 after fifteen years of partnership at Latham & Watkins, LLP, served as the Acting Director of FTC’s Bureau of Competition until July, 2017.
Mr. Lipsky served as chief antitrust lawyer for The Coca-Cola Company from 1992-2002 and has incomparable experience with antitrust in the US, EU, Canada, Japan and other established antitrust law regimes throughout the world, as well as in new and emerging antitrust law systems in scores of jurisdictions that adopted free-market institutions following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. For several decades he has participated in a variety of efforts to streamline antitrust enforcement around the world, improve the quality of antitrust analysis, harmonize international views on the fundamental objective of antitrust law, and assure that antitrust procedures are accurate, efficient and impartial both in reality and as perceived.
Mr. Lipsky served as the first International Officer of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law from 2001-03. He served on the Editorial Board of Competition Laws Outside the United States (2001), the most ambitious annotated compilation of non-US competition laws yet produced. He has held a variety of senior positions among the officers and governing Council of the Section of Antitrust Law and continues to serve as a co-chair of the Section's International Task Force. He has written, spoken and testified frequently on subjects in antitrust law, economics and policy. He has served as a co-chair of the International Competition Policy Working Group of the US Chamber of Commerce, and participated as a member of the International Competition Policy Expert’s Group that recently published its Report and Recommendations (March 2017) on needed reforms of international antitrust-law enforcement.
Mr. Lipsky is admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court and various federal appellate courts. Mr. Lipsky holds a J.D. (Stanford Law School, 1976) and an M.A. in Economics (Stanford University, 1976).
Richard M. Steuer is an antitrust practitioner, author, teacher, and former Chair of both the ABA Section of Antitrust Law and the New York City Bar Association’s Antitrust Committee. He is Senior Counsel at Mayer Brown LLP in New York City, where his practice includes litigation, mergers & acquisitions, intellectual property licensing, and e-commerce. Mr. Steuer has litigated at all levels of federal and state courts, on behalf of defendants and plaintiffs, in private suits and against government entities. He represents clients in government investigations and regularly advises leading companies on structuring their business practices.
Mr. Steuer served as Chair of the ABA Section of Antitrust Law from 2011-2012. Previously, he served as the Section’s Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates and as Editorial Chair of the Section’s Antitrust magazine. For three years he also served as Chair of the Antitrust Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Mr. Steuer has written a book and dozens of articles on antitrust law appearing in the Cornell Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, St. John’s Law Review, Antitrust Law Journal, and others. He lectures frequently, including presentations at workshops conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, and at programs sponsored by the International Competition Network, the ABA, the American Corporate Counsel Association, PLI, the International Franchise Association, the Conference Board and other organizations. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times and the National Law Journal. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Business Week and other publications, and has appeared on CNN and CNBC television.
Mr. Steuer has taught Antitrust Law as an adjunct associate professor at N.Y.U. School of Law and an adjunct professor at St. John’s School of Law. He also served as a member of the Advisory Board of BNA’s Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report and is listed in the directories of leading competition and antitrust lawyers.
Mr. Steuer is a graduate of Columbia Law School and is admitted to practice in New York State, in the federal district courts of New York, in the Second, Third, Fifth, Tenth and Federal Circuits, and in the United States Supreme Court.
Professor of Law and Rouse Chairholder, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Professor Miller holds an Allison and Dorothy Rouse Chair in Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School. An elected member of the American Law Institute and a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute, Professor Miller is also a Fellow and the Co-Director of the Program on Organizations, Business and Markets at the Classical Liberal Institute at the New York University Law School, an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding. Prior to joining George Mason University in 2025, Professor Miller was the F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Finance and Law and a Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he had also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development.
Professor Miller’s research concerns corporate and securities law, the economic analysis of law, and the philosophy of law. He is particularly interested in applying economic concepts and methods to understand provisions in contracts between sophisticated commercial parties. He has written on material adverse effect clauses under Delaware law, the fiduciary duties of corporate directors, director oversight liability, the history and development of Delaware corporate law, and much more. His articles and working papers are available on his SSRN page.
Professor Miller has been cited by federal and state courts in the United States, including the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery, as well as by the Commercial Court of the United Kingdom and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) in Canada. Additionally, he is a member of the Committee on Mergers, Acquisitions & Corporate Control Contests and a former chair of the Corporation Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Earlier in his career, Professor Miller was a Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law and the Associate Director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University. He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Cardozo Law School, and an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at the Columbia Law School.
Before entering academia, Professor Miller was an associate with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He earned his J.D. from the Yale Law School where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He earned his M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in philosophy from Columbia University, where he held a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a Western Civilization Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from Columbia College.
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Alden F. Abbott
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Svetlana Gans, Melissa Holyoak
Join us on Wednesday, July 10th at 12:00 PM ET for a special lunch panel...
United States v. Google
George L. Priest
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Jon Leibowitz, William Kovacic, Seth Bloom, Tad Lipsky, Richard M. Steuer
Some antitrust lawyers often say the federal government’s decisions about which mergers to challenge, which...
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Robert T. Miller
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