October 2017

President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Rohit Chopra and Joseph Simons to the Federal Trade Commission. After confirmation, Simons would serve as FTC chairman.

Rohit Chopra of New York is nominated for the remainder of a seven-year term expiring September 25, 2019. Mr. Chopra is currently a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focuses on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families. From 2010-2015, he served at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as Assistant Director, where he oversaw the agency’s work on student financial services issues. The Secretary of the Treasury also appointed him as the agency’s student loan ombudsman. In 2016, Mr. Chopra served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of Education. Prior to his government service, he was an associate at McKinsey & Company, where he served clients in the financial services and consumer technology sectors. Mr. Chopra holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s in business administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship. He resides in New York.

Joseph Simons of Virginia, for a seven-year term beginning September 26, 2017, and upon confirmation designate chair. Mr. Simons is currently a partner and co-chair of the Antitrust Group at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. His previous clients include many tech or tech-related firms, such as MasterCard, Microsoft, Sharp and Sony, the Washington Post reports. He has also represented companies in the defense, music, software, telecom and transportation industries. He was previously in charge of antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission, serving as Director of the Bureau of Competition from 2001 until 2003. Among his accomplishments, Mr. Simons was responsible for overseeing the re-invigoration of the FTC’s non-merger enforcement program. Under his leadership, the Bureau initiated over 100 investigations and produced more non-merger enforcement actions in one year than in any other year in the prior two decades or since. Mr. Simons is also a co-developer of “Critical Loss Analysis,” a technique for market definition that has been incorporated into the Department of Justice and FTC Merger Guidelines, as well as applied in numerous court decisions. Mr. Simons received his A.B. in Economics and History from Cornell University in 1980 and his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.

AT&T has secured the blessing of Brazilian regulators for its $85-billion takeover of Time Warner, moving the blockbuster deal closer to the finish line.

The company said Brazil’s antitrust authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, had signed off on AT&T’s application to acquire the media company which owns CNN, HBO, TBS, Cartoon Network and Hollywood’s biggest film and television studio, Warner Bros. Now, AT&T must win approval from the US Department of Justice before it can finalize the merger. The government’s review slowed over the summer because the Senate’s approval of President Trump’s appointment of Makan Delrahim as chief of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division was made in late September. The Justice Department and AT&T continue to negotiate conditions for the merger, according to knowledgeable people who do not want to be identified discussing the sensitive process. AT&T earlier had received approval from regulators in Chile and Mexico. Brazilian regulators concluded that AT&T would not be required to divest any assets.