David Wales, the leader of Jones Day's global antitrust and competition practice, has left the firm and is poised to become a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, according to sources familiar with the move.

Wales, who is based in Washington, D.C., has led Jones Day's highly regarded antitrust practice of about 150 lawyers since January 2013. A cached version of Wales' biography on Jones Day's website says he counseled clients, including The Carlyle Group, Deutsche Bank, General Electric, HeidelbergCement, Nasdaq, Newell Brands, Procter & Gamble and Sanofi on antitrust matters.

The moves come at a time of broader shake-up among the Washington, D.C., antitrust bar, with some practitioners taking their practices to law firms that are known for transactional practices that often generate antitrust review work.

Wales joined Jones Day in 2009, following three years at the Federal Trade Commission as acting director of the Bureau of Competition from 2008 to 2009. He was previously a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and Shearman & Sterling.

From 2001 to 2003, Wales worked in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division as counsel to the assistant attorney general. In that role, he oversaw the DOJ's enforcement actions over such industries as software, media, defense, steel, telecom, energy, finance and transportation.

Both Jones Day and Skadden are ranked Tier 1 antitrust practices in the U.S., according to Chambers & Partners. Skadden's antitrust practice, led in North America by New York-based Clifford Aronson, touts about 85 lawyers spread across Brussels, Hong Kong, New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, according to Skadden's website.

Aronson, one of the leading antitrust practitioners in the country, has represented Rockwell Collins, Mars Inc., EMC Corp., E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (DuPont), Citrix Systems Inc., Hospira Inc., and many more companies in large transactions involving antitrust issues.

The D.C. antitrust bar has seen a number of shake-ups this year.

Hill Wellford and Darren Tucker, for instance, joined Vinson & Elkins this month from Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Welford and Tucker said they were intrigued by the opportunity to work on antitrust matters generated by Vinson & Elkins' robust transactional practice.

“Darren and I have had a tremendously good practice, but it has been almost exclusively what's called a destination practice—meaning we generated our own clients,” Wellford said. “Vinson & Elkins offered us the opportunity to bring those over of a piece, with no conflict problems, but also be able to join with the possibility of being able to do the work that they already do with this antitrust group.”

A five-partner team of Hunton & Williams partners joined Shearman & Sterling in June. That team was led by David Higbee, a member of President Donald Trump's transition team and managing partner of Hunton & Williams' office in the nation's capital, as well as global competition head Bruce Hoffman, and antitrust partners Todd Stenerson, Djordje Petkoski and Ryan Shores. And this month, Hogan Lovells hired partner Andrew Lee from Steptoe & Johnson.

Skadden declined to comment on the hire of Wales. Neither Wales nor Jones Day were immediately available to comment.