US DoJ antitrust lawyer takes up New York-based Cravath post

Cravath Swaine & Moore is strengthening its antitrust team with the hire of Christine Varney, a key player in the Obama administration's efforts to shore up the 
nation's antitrust enforcement efforts, from the Department 
of Justice (DoJ).

Varney is due to join Cravath's New York office on 6 September, having taken her post as assistant attorney general of the department's antitrust division in April 2009.

Prior to this, she spent a decade as an antitrust partner in the Washington DC office of legacy Hogan & Hartson, where she founded and led the firm's internet practice group. She also served as a commissioner with the Federal Trade Commission from 1994 to 1997.

As assistant attorney general Varney has been in charge of leading the antitrust division's merger review, enforcement, competition advocacy and international co-ordination programmes. She oversees a staff of more than 800 people, with an annual budget of more than $160m (£100m).

Attorney General Eric Holder said: "There is no doubt that her tireless work helped protect consumers and businesses from anti-competitive conduct and preserved competition in America's economy."

Among the hallmarks of Varney's tenure at the DoJ was a sharpened focus on international cartel cases and price-fixing in the US. The antitrust division brought 60 criminal cases and charged 84 defendants in the last fiscal year, according to a DoJ statement, with the division's lawyers collecting more than $550m (£344m) in fines 
during that period.

This article first appeared in The American Lawyer, a US affiliate title of Legal Week.