Tad Lipsky

Biographical Sketch

Tad Lipsky is Assistant Professor and Director of the Competition Advocacy Program. He has extensive experience in virtually every aspect of antitrust and competition practice, U.S. and international.

From 1981-83 Mr. Lipsky was a Deputy to Assistant Attorney General William F. Baxter, President Reagan's first chief antitrust enforcement official, who sparked profound changes in antitrust. In that position, Mr. Lipsky supervised Supreme Court litigation in a series of groundbreaking antitrust cases. He supervised preparation of the 1982 Department of Justice Merger Guidelines, which provided the first clear and thorough economic foundation for antitrust analysis of mergers, acquisitions and other structural transactions. He also organized and supervised an internal review of United States v. IBM, 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 2016 election of President Donald Trump.

Following his retirement in February 2017 after fifteen years of partnership at Latham & Watkins, LLP, he served as the Acting Director of FTC’s Bureau of Competition until July 2017.

Professor Lipsky served as chief antitrust lawyer for The Coca-Cola Company from 1992-2002 and has incomparable experience with antitrust law regimes throughout the world, including established regimes (U.S., Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, South Africa) as well as in new and emerging antitrust law systems in scores of jurisdictions that adopted free-market institutions following dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He has long participated in efforts to improve the quality of antitrust analysis, harmonize international views on antitrust, and assure that antitrust procedures produce accurate, impartial and efficient decisions. Mr. Lipsky served as the first International Officer of the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section from 2001-03. He has held a variety of other senior positions among the officers and governing Council of the Section and continues to serve as an Emeritus Co-Chair of the Section's Comments Committee, which provides commentary and advice to antitrust agencies worldwide. He was a co-chair of the International Competition Policy Working Group of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and participated as a member of the International Competition Policy Expert’s Group that published a Report and Recommendations (March 2017) on needed reforms of international antitrust-law enforcement.

Mr. Lipsky is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal appellate courts.