Maureen K Ohlhausen

Practice Areas

Antitrust Civil Enforcement

Antitrust Compliance and Business Strategy

Antitrust Litigation

Antitrust Merger Clearance

Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust and Intellectual Property

Federal Trade Commission

Government Investigations

Litigation

Privacy and Cybersecurity

Supreme Court and Appellate

Third-Party Merger and Non-Merger Antitrust Representation

Career

Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was a partner and co-chair of the global antitrust and competition law group at an international firm. She has represented numerous Fortune 100 companies in government investigations and merger reviews, achieving global clearances and successful resolutions. Before joining the FTC, she was a partner at a national communications and technology law firm. Maureen has consistently been listed in Chambers Global and Chambers USA, and was named a leading US litigator by Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America.

Maureen has held the highest-ranking position at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), having served as Acting Chairman and Commissioner. She also served as the head of Policy Planning at the FTC, leading key initiatives in digital commerce issues. To date, she is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.

Publications

Maureen is a frequently published author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading media outlets on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has also testified over two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee, as well as the Antitrust Modernization Commission. Her scholarship has been cited approvingly by U.S. Courts of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Experience

Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.

After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.

In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.

To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.

Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.

A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.