Veteran antitrust lawyer and former Trump Justice Department official Andrew Finch is heading to Cravath Swaine & Moore.
Finch, who was No. 2 in DOJ’s antitrust division during President Donald Trump’s first administration, is leaving Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, where he co-chaired the firm’s antitrust practice. He joins Cravath as a partner in its litigation department, the firm said Tuesday.
“Andrew’s extensive experience in and out of government will be invaluable to our clients as they navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment,” Faiza Saeed, Cravath’s presiding partner, said in a statement.
Finch advised Spirit Airlines Inc. in its $3.8 billion sale to JetBlue Airways Corp., which was called off after the Biden DOJ successfully sued to block the deal. He also advised Uber Technologies in the DOJ Antitrust Division’s review and clearance of its $2.65 billion acquisition of Postmates. Finch’s other clients have included Anheuser-Busch InBev, Mastercard, Apollo Global Management, and FIFA.
He is the latest former Trump administration official to join Cravath, the Manhattan-founded deals firm. Ex-FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams heads the firm’s Washington D.C. office, where former Securities and Exchange Commission officials Elad Roisman and Jennifer S. Leete are partners. Jeffrey Rosen, who was acting attorney general in the first Trump administration, also works in the office in an of counsel role.
Christine A. Varney, a former assistant attorney general for antitrust in the Obama administration and FTC commissioner in the Clinton administration, leads the firm’s antitrust group alongside Noah Joshua Phillips, a former FTC commissioner appointed by Trump in 2018. Cravath lawyers represented longtime client The Walt Disney Co. in its combination of its Hulu and Live TV business with FuboTV Inc. and Frontier Communications in its $20 billion acquisition of Verizon Communications.
Paul Weiss has long had close ties to the Democratic party and the outgoing Biden administration. The firm, which has been on a deals lawyer hiring tear, has several prominent ex-government officials on its roster, including Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. It added former Manhattan US attorney Damian Williams earlier this month.
Finch first joined Paul Weiss in 2005, after a two-year stint as counsel to the assistant attorney general of the antitrust division. He left Paul Weiss in April 2017 to serve as acting assistant attorney general of the antitrust division. He became the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the antitrust division in September 2017 before returning to Paul Weiss two years later.
“I am delighted to join Cravath and its extraordinarily accomplished antitrust team,” Finch said in a statement. “Cravath has a long and legendary history handling competition matters, and I look forward to working with my new colleagues to bring all our capacity to bear to support our clients’ needs.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: