Steven Newborn serves as head of Weil’s global Antitrust/Competition practice. Previously, he was the Director of Litigation at the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition where he was in charge of its Merger Enforcement Program until he left in 1994.
Mr. Newborn has served as a Special Assistant US Attorney, a member of the faculty of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA), Master of the Bar of the Charles Fahy American Inns of Court, chair of the Government Antitrust Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section, chair of the Merger Litigation Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section, and co-chair of the Long Range Planning Committee of the Corporate Counsel Section of the Federal Bar Association.
In private practice, Mr. Newborn has continued to conduct major litigations as well as shepherd mergers and acquisitions through the agencies, obtaining approvals for well over hundreds of transactions, many of which had run into regulatory blocks before he was retained. He has been cited by every publication that ranks antitrust lawyers as one of the best in the profession. He has been recognized by Legal 500 and Best Lawyers in America for his antitrust work. Lawdragon named Newborn one of the 500 best attorneys (of any discipline) in the nation and one of only three antitrust lawyers in the country recognized as the nation’s finest dealmakers. Chambers Global reported that commentators rated Newborn as “a top-notch lawyer – exceptional on the merger side, with excellent contacts in both the USA and Europe;” “in a class of his own;” and endorsed by clients as “someone you’ll turn to on a life and death merger transaction.” This observation is reaffirmed by Chambers USA, where he is praised as a “[h]ighly intelligent and knowledgeable practitioner,” and is heralded by many as “‘one of the best’ M&A lawyers of his generation.” Mr. Newborn is ranked in DC Antitrust, where Chambers and Partners described him as an “antitrust strategist with an outstanding intellect who gets results and inspires confidence.”
Mr. Newborn has extensive experience in a wide range of industries including high tech, pharmaceuticals, biotech, health care, energy, raw materials, chemicals, defense, and retailing. He represents many of the Fortune 100 companies in their most critical antitrust matters.
The antitrust cases he has tried include the first successful Section 7(A)G(2) proceeding under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and the first successful interpretation of the Bankruptcy Act as not limiting the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Mr. Newborn is an expert in high-stakes antitrust litigation. He has served as lead counsel in numerous trials, is often consulted by the government in their court cases, and is recognized by every ranking publication as one of the nation’s leading antitrust trial lawyers. He is the recipient of the Brandeis Award presented to the Federal Trade Commission’s finest litigator.
Mr. Newborn was a major contributor to the 1992 Federal Merger Guidelines and is the author of a number of articles on both antitrust and trial practice. He was named to the Department of Defense’s Antitrust Task Force that advised the Secretary of Defense concerning horizontal merger policy in the defense industry and has lectured on antitrust and litigation at the nation’s top universities, and to government agencies throughout the United States and Europe.