Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Margaret Harker litigates for a public interest law firm. She has significant experience in government investigations and litigation, having served in the three branches of our government. Previously, she led complex Congressional investigations for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—including the only government-wide investigation into federal agencies’ strategy (or lack thereof) to counter Chinese Communist Party political warfare against America.
Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Harker served in the U.S. Department of Justice. She was an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Eastern District of Tennessee and the Eastern District of Virginia. She was a Trial Attorney in the National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, with an emphasis on the administration and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Harker clerked for the Honorable Henry E. Hudson, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Honorable Randolph A. Beales, Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Earlier in her career, she studied in Beijing, China, and worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s China Center.
Writer and Editor, Tablet Magazine
Park MacDougald is Editor and Senior Writer at The Scroll, Tablet’s daily afternoon newsletter, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a former recipient of the Novak Fellowship from The Fund for American Studies. His writing has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Examiner, and UnHerd.
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Global Competition Counsel, BHP Group
Kirstie is Global Competition Counsel at BHP. Based in Singapore, Kirstie is responsible for the group’s competition law compliance framework and leads the BHP competition law team advising advises clients located across the BHP group on the full range of competition law matters, including merger control, investigations and day to day counselling. Before joining BHP, Kirstie spent over a decade in private practice as a competition law specialist with international law firms in London, Brussels, Shanghai and Singapore, and was among the first European competition lawyers to relocate to China to assist clients with aspects of the developing competition laws in Asia. Her practice has covered all aspects of competition law, including cartels, dominance, mergers and appeals to the European Courts. Kirstie was also a founding partner of Landmark Asia in Singapore, a boutique public affairs consultancy assisting clients with regulation and policy throughout the APAC region.
Former Senior Director, Antitrust & Competition, Cisco
Gil Ohana is former Senior Director, Antitrust and Competition for Cisco, the leading manufacturer of networking equipment for the Internet. Gil writes and speaks regularly on antitrust and intellectual property issues relating to standard-essential patents in the areas of wired and wireless networking and communications. He has participated indiscussions of standards development organization IPR policies at leading standards development organizations such as ANSI, ETSI, IEEE-SA, ITU-T, IETF, and OneM2m, and has advised on the formation and operation of numerous informal standards development organizations active in IoT and patent pools.
From 1993 through 1996, Gil was a trial attorney with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he participated in the Division's investigation of Microsoft's software licensing practices and its successful court challenge to Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Intuit.
Gil received his law degree from Columbia University, where he was articles editor of the Columbia Law Review, and his B.A. from Harvard College. He is admitted to the bars of California and the District of Columbia.
Senior Counsel for International Competition Affairs, Deutsche Telekom AG
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Christopher M. Wilson is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group.
Mr. Wilson assists clients in navigating DOJ, FTC, and international competition authority investigations as well as private party litigation involving complex antitrust and consumer protection issues, including matters implicating the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, the FTC Act, the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) merger review process, as well as international and state competition statutes. His experience crosses multiple industries, including health insurance, transportation, telecommunications, technology, energy, agriculture, and biotechnology, and his particular areas of focus include merger enforcement, interlocking directorates, joint ventures, compliance programs, and employee “no-poach” agreements. He is also well-versed in cross-border investigations involving the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Korea, and Saudi Arabia, among other jurisdictions.
Mr. Wilson is also active in the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, serving as Vice Chair of the Transportation & Energy Industries Committee. He is also a member of the Section’s Health Care and Pharmaceuticals Committee, and is a frequent participant in ABA webcasts and presentations.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wilson was a trial attorney in the Transportation, Energy & Agriculture Section of the U.S. Department of Justice – Antitrust Division. During his tenure, Mr. Wilson played a prominent role in numerous high-profile matters, and he received the Antitrust Division’s Award of Distinction on two separate occasions. Before joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Wilson was an associate in Gibson Dunn’s Dallas office.
He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar, and was an editor on the Columbia Business Law Review. He holds a B.A. in Economics from New York University.
Mr. Wilson is admitted to practice in California, Texas, and the District of Columbia.
Sean A. Mirski is a lawyer and U.S. foreign policy scholar who has worked on national security issues across multiple U.S. presidential administrations. A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he currently practices national security, foreign relations, and appellate law at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, and is also a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He previously served in the U.S. Department of Defense under both Republican and Democratic administrations as Special Counsel to the General Counsel, where he earned the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. He has written extensively on American history, international relations, law, and politics, including as editor of the book Crux of Asia: China, India, and the Emerging Global Order (CEIP 2013). Earlier in his career, he clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices and served as a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30,” he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago.
Managing Director, SCF Partners
Daniel G. West invests in energy services, equipment, and technology companies at SCF Partners in Houston, Texas. He provides equity capital and strategic growth assistance to entrepreneurs and leaders of both start-up ventures and established, growing businesses.
Prior to joining the private sector, Mr. West served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. As a platoon commander with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Mesa Verde, he led the Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel force in support of the NATO aerial campaign over Libya. He then served as executive officer of India Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines as it mentored Afghan forces to assume lead security responsibility and executed counter-narcotics missions in Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He also served as a clerk for Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Mr. West holds degrees in law, business administration, and economics from Harvard University, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review and taught undergraduate courses in economics and government. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the International & National Security Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Chief Judge (ret.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and Honorary Professor, Tsinghua University
Randall R. Rader was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 and served as Chief Judge from June 2010 to June 2014. He was appointed to the United States Claims Court (now the U. S. Court of Federal Claims) by President Ronald W. Reagan in 1988. Judge Rader's most prized title may well be "Professor Rader."
As Professor, Judge Rader has taught courses on patent law and other advanced intellectual property courses at The George Washington University Law School,University of Virginia School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, and other university programs in Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi, and Beijing. Due to the size and diversity of his classes, Judge Rader may have taught patent law to more students than anyone else. Judge Rader has also co-authored several texts including the most widely used textbook on U. S. patent law, "Cases and Materials on Patent Law," (St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West 3d ed. 2009) and "Patent Law in a Nutshell," (St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West 2007) (translated into Chinese and Japanese). Judge Rader has won acclaim for leading dozens of government and educational delegations to every continent (except Antarctica), teaching rule of law and intellectual property law principles.
Judge Rader has received many awards, including the Sedona Lifetime Achievement Award for Intellectual Property Law, 2009; Distinguished Teaching Awards from George Washington University Law School, 2003 and 2008 (by election of the students); the Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association, 2003; the Distinguished Service Award from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, 2003; the J. William Fulbright Award for Distinguished Public Service from George Washington University Law School, 2000; and the Younger Federal Lawyer Award from the Federal Bar Association, 1983. Before appointment to the Court of Federal Claims, Judge Rader served as Minority and Majority Chief Counsel to Subcommittees of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. From 1975 to 1980, he served as Counsel in the House of Representatives for representatives serving on the Interior, Appropriations, and Ways and Means Committees. He received a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University in 1974 and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 1978.
Foreign Influence Operations and National Security
Margaret Harker, Park MacDougald, Vincent Vitkowsky
Foreign influence operations have become increasingly important in geopolitical competition and American national security. China...
Proposed Changes to the HSR Merger Filing Process: In-House Counsel View
Kirstie Nicholson, Gil Ohana, Roman Reuter, Chris Wilson
The U.S. antitrust agencies have recently proposed changes to the HSR merger filing process, broadening...
Talks with Authors: We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus
Sean A. Mirski, Daniel G. West
In his newly released book We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise...
The California Application for a Waiver of Preemption Under the Clean Air Act to Enforce Greenhouse Gas Standards on New Vehicles
In 2002 the California legislature passed A.B. 1493. This law commanded the California Air Resources...
Intellectual Property Protection in China
Randall R. Rader
China recognized the significance of intellectual property as early as the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 617-906]....