A. Douglas Melamed, Former Head of DOJ Antitrust Division, Joins Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2001

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering is pleased to announce that A. Douglas Melamed, the former Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division, is returning to the Firm as a partner.

Mr. Melamed joins the Firm's Antitrust and Competition Practice Group, which consists of 50 full-time competition lawyers divided evenly between the United States and Europe.

Prior to heading the Antitrust Division, Mr. Melamed served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General from October 1996 to September 2000. During his 4 1/2-year tenure at the Antitrust Division, he was responsible for civil non-merger and merger investigations and litigation involving, at various times, most of the Division's litigating sections.

His appellate litigation responsibilities extended to both civil and criminal antitrust cases and amicus briefs in the Supreme Court and lower courts.

Internationally, he worked with current WCP partner Chuck Stark, then section chief of the Foreign Commerce Section, in negotiating bilateral and multilateral agreements with foreign competition agencies, representing the United States at the OECD, WTO and other international forums, and coordinating transnational civil and criminal antitrust investigations.

In addition, Mr. Melamed was responsible for policy matters involving, among others, the electricity and tobacco industries.

William J. Kolasky, Co-Chairman of WCP's Antitrust and Competition Practice Group, commented: "Doug is one of the leading antitrust thinkers and practitioners of our generation. The period in which he and Joel Klein headed up the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is justifiably viewed as a Golden Age of Antitrust."

William J. Perlstein, Chairman of the Firm's Management Committee, said: "We are thrilled that Doug is rejoining us. He is one of the true leaders of the antitrust bar. We already have one of the leading antitrust/competition practices in the United States and Europe; and Doug's return, along with our recent additions of Chuck Stark from Justice and Veronica Kayne from the FTC, will give us an unparalleled ability to serve our clients' needs both in Washington and in Brussels."

Before joining the Antitrust Division, Mr. Melamed was a partner of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and served as Chairman of the Firm's Antitrust and Consumer Protection Practice Group. He has been the Distinguished Visitor from Practice and an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

He is the author of numerous articles on antitrust and on law-and-economics, including the seminal article Property Rules, Liability Rules and Inalienability - One View of the Cathedral, 85 Harvard Law Review 1089 (1972), co-authored with Guido Calabresi.

Mr. Melamed received his B.A. from Yale University (magna cum laude) in 1967 and his J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard in 1970, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Charles M. Merrill of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The return of Mr. Melamed to WCP reflects the continued expansion of the Firm's integrated transatlantic antitrust and competition practice.

Mr. Melamed's expertise in non-merger investigations and litigation, particularly in the technology, telecommunications and financial services sectors, as well as his experience in the merger review process, will complement the expertise of the Firm's European competition practices.

Just as the Firm's clients have enjoyed having a single firm responsible for all merger clearances to ensure consistency and unity of purpose in the face of ever increasing cooperation among competition authorities, the addition of Mr. Melamed enhances WCP's ability to provide comprehensive and cutting-edge advice on transatlantic civil and criminal investigations and litigation.

Key cases on which WCP lawyers in Europe and the United States have recently cooperated, include the AOL/Time Warner, Tetra Laval/Sidel, Unilever/Bestfoods, and Deutsche Telekom/ VoiceStream/Powertel mergers; the dominance investigations of Coca-Cola and Network Solutions; civil investigations into the Lufthansa alliances; antitrust litigation in the technology, securities and German coal industries; and several successfully concluded (and therefore confidential) cartel investigations.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering is an international law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, London, Brussels, Berlin, Northern Virginia and Baltimore. The firm has more than 400 lawyers engaged in a broad practice spanning the full range of corporate transactions, regulatory work, high-stakes litigation, cross-border transactions, and international arbitration.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering's Antitrust & Competition Practice

With more than 50 antitrust and competition lawyers in the firm's Washington, New York, Brussels, London and Berlin offices, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering offers tremendous breadth, depth and experience on virtually every type of competition issue.

Our ability to address our clients' antitrust concerns before the leading antitrust authorities in the U.S. and Europe and to provide tightly coordinated strategic advice has become an invaluable service to clients.

We foster an integrated practice by regularly working together on client matters, providing leading-edge communications technologies, and rotating partners and associates between offices based on project needs and longer term assignments.

We have complemented our own competencies before the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, European Commission, German Bundeskartellamt and UK Office of Fair Trading with a well-developed network of leading antitrust practitioners around the world and reinforced their skills with the international relationships that our partner Chuck Stark forged in twenty years as head of the Department of Justice's international unit.

Our U.S. Lawyers

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering offers one of the premier antitrust practices in the United States. Bill Kolasky is one of the leading members of the U.S. antitrust bar and represents a variety of major U.S. and multi-national corporations in both merger and civil and criminal non-merger antitrust matters.

For example, he has represented Price Waterhouse in its merger with Coopers & Lybrand, and represented AlliedSignal in its acquisition of Honeywell. He has served as an officer of the ABA Antitrust Section and written numerous articles on U.S. and international antitrust matters.

Robert Bell counsels clients on a variety of civil and criminal antitrust matters and has extensive experience in trans-national merger clearance. Among his clients are Kodak and Unimin and he has also brought significant and successful antitrust qui tam actions.

Loring Jetton has extensive antitrust counseling and litigation experience in both government and private matters and has handled U.S. antitrust matters for foreign governments. Veronica Kayne recently joined Wilmer from the Federal Trade Commission where she was Assistant Director of the Bureau of Competition in charge of the Anticompetitive Practices Division.

In this role she was in charge of the investigation and litigation of civil non-merger matters at the FTC. Prior to joining the FTC, Ms. Kayne had extensive experience in private practice in both merger and non-merger matters.

Jim Lowe, who served for four years in the Antitrust Division early in his career, counsels clients on all aspects of antitrust and has substantial experience in mergers and government investigations, especially in the communications, transportation and industrial equipment industries.

Ali Stoeppelwerth focuses her practice on antitrust counseling and litigation, particularly in the securities, media, and aviation industries. She has represented investment houses, a stock exchange, newspapers and major international air carriers.

Jim Campbell, a tremendously experienced antitrust lawyer, was one of the principal drafters of the first Merger Guidelines, as well as the Tunney Act which regulates the settlement of antitrust actions brought by the Department of Justice.

He has particularly focused on the competition aspects of international aviation on both sides of the Atlantic, while also representing clients in a variety of other industries.

The practice is supported in the U.S. by more than ten junior lawyers and two counsel. Lee Greenfield has significant litigation and investigatory experience. He has also managed teams in multinational merger reviews. Janet Ridge is one of the country's leading experts on the workings of the U.S. pre-merger notification system under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

In addition, she leads the Firm's coordination of worldwide merger filings and clearance for multi-national transactions.

In addition to this core group of lawyers, a number of members of the Wilmer's litigation practice have extensive experience in both government and private civil litigation, including Steve Hut, John Rounsaville, Randy Moss, Gary Wilson, Tom Connell and Ted Killory.

Partners in other regulatory practices in the Firm also have substantial competition law experience in their respective fields, including Ron Greene in the Financial Services practice, Bill Lake in the Communications practice, and Sheila Cheston in the International Aerospace, Defense and Aviation practice.

The Firm also has extensive experience in handling criminal antitrust matters. Three partners in our New York office are former senior Assistant United States Attorneys: Paul Engelmayer, Lewis Liman and Peter Vigeland. Messrs. Engelmayer and Vigeland have each recently represented clients in antitrust grand jury matters or related litigation.

In addition, in Washington, John Rounsaville has represented numerous clients in grand jury matters; Jim Lowe participated in criminal prosecutions while at the Antitrust Division and has represented clients in grand jury investigations, as have other partners in the Firm's antitrust group.

Our European Lawyers

The Brussels office is the hub of the Firm's European competition practice and is staffed by lawyers qualified in nine countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the United States, and Canada.

The practice has handled virtually every type of competition issue representing high profile clients in a wide range of sectors including communications, IT, media, aviation, financial services and electronic products and services as well as the more traditional consumer products and manufacturing industries.

Andreas Weitbrecht and John Ratliff lead the practice and are seasoned antitrust practitioners with a wealth of experience in a broad range of competition issues. Mr. Weitbrecht has been involved in numerous proceedings before the German Bundeskartellamt, German and European courts and the European Commission. He is noted for complex cartel defense work, as well as for his EC merger clearance work.

Mr. Ratliff has been involved in most types of competition proceedings both in Brussels and at national competition authority level in various Member States. He has also been involved in several leading merger and joint venture cases, represented numerous complainants and also organized compliance programs for multinational corporations across Europe.

Jean-Michel Coumes, an experienced French and EC competition counsel, compliments and supports their practices.

Thomas Mueller and Chuck Stark form the core of the office's transatlantic practice. Mr. Mueller, as U.S.-trained competition lawyer was resident in Brussels for the past three years and now splits his time between the Firm's Brussels and Washington offices, working almost exclusively on European matters.

Mr. Stark joined WCP's Brussels office in February after serving as head of the Antitrust Division's Foreign Commerce Section for over 20 years and thereby having been instrumental in most of DOJ's major international antitrust initiatives. They, along with Eric Mahr, an experienced antitrust and litigation counsel, advise clients on transatlantic merger clearance and dominance investigations, as well as counsel on contractual arrangements.

Christian Duvernoy has been based in the Brussels office since 1990 and divides his time between competition and telecommunications issues. In his 10 years of experience in EC practice, Mr. Duvernoy has been involved before DG Competition on virtually every significant telecommunications merger, as well as on competition challenges to regulatory frameworks and incumbent operator practices.

Issues stemming from the interface between competition and trade law are handled by Marc Hansen, who heads the European Trade law practice and advises government and private sector clients on WCO, WTO and EU trade and intellectual property law, and Chuck Stark, who served as a U.S. delegate to Trade and Competition Policy bodies of the OECD and WTO, together with Jean-Paul Poitras, who is counsel to WCP.

Our German competition practice is staffed by lawyers in both the Berlin and Brussels offices, who have participated in all types of proceedings before the German Bundeskartellamt or Federal Cartel Office.

Particular emphasis of the practice has been on merger control and the competition law issues in recently deregulated industries. Andreas Weitbrecht together with Sven Voelcker, counsel to WCP, regularly represent a large number of clients before the Bundeskartellamt.

John Kallaugher leads the London-based UK competition practice. He has been practicing antitrust law with the Firm since 1982, both before the European Commission and under domestic UK competition law.

Mr. Kallaugher is particularly experienced in abuse of dominance and parallel trade cases and is Visiting Professor at University College London where he teaches Comparative U.S. Antitrust Law and EC Competition Law.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering's European competition practice includes nine partners and four counsel supported by some 18 associates. Six partners and four counsel are resident in the Brussels office.