Laura Wilkinson is an antitrust partner in the Washington, DC office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges with a practice focusing on mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Wilkinson has successfully obtained merger clearance from the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department for clients in a variety of industries, as well as serving as lead antitrust counsel for numerous multi-billion dollar transactions. Representative transactions include: Kinder Morgan’s acquisition of El Paso; ExxonMobil’s acquisition of XTO Energy; Johnson & Johnson’s acquisitions of Micrus Endovascular and Disc-O-Tech Medical Technologies; Micron Technology’s acquisition of Numonyx; Vulcan Materials’ acquisition of Florida Rock; Sherwin-Williams’ acquisitions of Duron and MAB Paint; the management-led buyout of Kinder Morgan; and the merger of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment.
Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Wilkinson served as Deputy Assistant Director of the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission, where she oversaw one of the Bureau’s litigation divisions and was responsible for merger enforcement in industries such as defense and pharmaceuticals. She was also responsible for negotiating numerous consent orders, which preserved competition while allowing the mergers to proceed.
Ms. Wilkinson’s tenure with the Federal Trade Commission was marked by numerous awards, including the Paul Rand Dixon Award for developing innovative antitrust theories and arguments; the Outstanding Team Effort Award for her roles as lead attorney in FTC v. Alliant Techsystems and in the FTC’s successful challenge of Rite Aid’s acquisition of Revco; and the Distinguished Service Award. She has written extensively on antitrust issues, and received a 2008 Burton Award for legal writing achievement for co-writing the article, “Private Equity: Antitrust Concerns With Partial Acquisitions,” which appeared in the American Bar Association publication Antitrust. Ms. Wilkinson is recognized by Super Lawyers 2011 for antitrust in Washington, DC.
Ms. Wilkinson is an active member of the American Bar Association, where she was co-chair of the Antitrust Section’s FTC Committee, the District of Columbia Bar, where she was chair of the Antitrust and Consumer Law Section, and the National Bar Association. She has taught antitrust law as an adjunct professor at Howard University School of Law.
Ms. Wilkinson received her law degree and a Masters in Business Administration from Cornell University. She is active in various civic organizations, including Legal Momentum, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, AKA Educational Advancement Foundation, President’s Council of Cornell Women, Cornell Law School Advisory Council, and Cornell University Council.