Trump nominates antitrust lawyer Joe Simons to head FTC
President Donald Trump Wednesday has nominated antitrust lawyer Joe Simons as the next head of the Federal Trade Commission, an agency of ever-increasing importance to the technology industry’s giants.
Simons has for some time been a prominent antitrust lawyer working in Washington D.C., representing companies such as Microsoft Corp. White House officials also said nominated Noah Phillips and Rohit Chopra as FTC commissioners.
Simons is no stranger to the FTC, serving as director at its Bureau of Competition from 2001 to 2003, after which he became a partner at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. There he represented the Rockstar Consortium Inc., a coalition of tech companies that included Apple Inc., Microsoft, Google LLC, Sony Corp., Ericsson Inc. and others. The consortium was formed to negotiate licensing for patents acquired by telecommunications giant Nortel Networks Corp.
The FTC’s main responsibility is to scrutinize business practices and protect consumers’ online privacy. It also enforces antitrust laws and protects consumers from deceptive advertising. In August, Uber Technologies Inc. agreed to 20 years of audits after an FTC investigation into data mishandling by the ride-hailing giant.
For some time Trump has been expected to replace Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen as well as fill three empty commission seats, two of which are Republican, plus one Democrat or independent. Noah Phillips is currently chief counsel for U.S. Senator and Texas Republican John Cornyn. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Phillips worked with law firms Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Filling the Democrat seat, if approved, is Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and former assistant director at the U.S. government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chopra would join Commissioner Terrell McSweeny as the second Democratic seat, although he is expected to leave soon.
Image: Michael Vadon via Flickr
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