04/19/2010
Cooley Announces Addition of Two Antitrust Partners
Washington, DC and Palo Alto, CA – April 19, 2010 -- Cooley Godward Kronish announced that
Howard Morse, former Assistant Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and co-chair of the antitrust practice at Drinker Biddle, has joined the firm's
Antitrust & Trade Regulation practice. He will be resident in Washington, D.C. In addition, the firm announced that antitrust special counsel
Francis Fryscak has been elected to the partnership. Fryscak is based in Palo Alto, Calif.
Morse regularly represents businesses before the FTC, the Department of Justice, and State Attorneys General in investigations involving mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures as well as alleged monopolization and restraint of trade cases. He also counsels clients on antitrust issues and represents companies in private antitrust litigation.
During a 10-year career at the FTC, Morse was responsible for more than 50 enforcement actions, including Hart-Scott-Rodino civil penalty and merger enforcement actions against firms in the pharmaceutical, medical device, computer hardware and software industries. In private practice, he has guided numerous mergers and acquisitions through government review and has assisted clients in seeking government challenges to other transactions. He has successfully defended targets of agency investigations and has represented plaintiffs, defendants and third parties in antitrust litigation.
Throughout his career, Morse has been at the forefront of applying antitrust law to the high-tech sector and the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property law, including issues related to innovation markets, patent pools, standard setting and settlement of intellectual property litigation.
Fryscak counsels companies on antitrust matters arising out of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures, as well as on distribution arrangements, price discrimination and corporate antitrust compliance. He has worked closely with clients in numerous high-profile antitrust investigations brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and foreign antitrust regulatory agencies, and was the lead antitrust attorney on transactions including IXI Corporation's acquisition by Equifax Inc., LEO Pharma A/S's acquisition of Peplin, Inc., and SpringSource Global, Inc.'s acquisition by VMware, Inc.
"The addition of Howard and Francis to the partnership reflects the importance of and our absolute commitment to this critical area of practice for our clients," said Joe Conroy, Cooley's chief executive officer. "Cooley has a long history of successfully advising clients on antitrust matters, including transaction-related counseling and bet-the-company litigation. Given their respective backgrounds and experiences, I am confident that Howard and Francis will only strengthen our legacy of client service and success in the antitrust area."
"Cooley's preeminent technology, life sciences and clean tech practices, and leading position in M&A nationwide was a huge draw to my joining the firm," Morse said. "I look forward to helping clients navigate the Washington regulatory process, particularly with the current increased scrutiny on high-tech industries."
In 2009, Cooley ranked among the top ten law firms in the United States for completed M+A transactions, according to industry surveys conducted by Bloomberg and Mergermarket.
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