Samer M. Musallam is an antitrust partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office and a nationally recognized trial lawyer with extensive experience in both merger clearance and antitrust litigation. As a former prosecutor and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General at the DOJ Antitrust Division, Samer has led some of the most significant merger investigations and trials of the past decade. Notably, he served as lead trial counsel and first chair in the DOJ’s successful challenge to the Novelis/Aleris merger, which marked the Division’s first-ever use of arbitration to resolve a merger dispute.
Samer’s practice focuses on advising private equity sponsors, strategic buyers, and corporations in navigating complex merger reviews, government investigations and litigation before the DOJ and the FTC. He also represents clients in private antitrust litigation, including price-fixing class actions, and criminal antitrust investigations. Samer’s experience spans a broad range of industries, including airlines, asset management, banking, ESG initiatives, fintech, industrial materials, metals, medical devices, telecommunications, fintech, wireless baseband chips, mining and material handling equipment, and the locomotive and railroad sectors.
Experience
Representative Clients and Matters:
- Led Nippon Steel Corporation in obtaining successful antitrust clearance from the DOJ for its historic $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel Corporation.
- Represented Xerox in its $1.5 billion strategic acquisition of Lexmark.
- Represented TPG Capital, L.P. as the divestiture buyer in its $2.2B acquisition of ClaimsXten, following the DOJ’s challenge to United Healthcare’s acquisition of Change Healthcare.
- Represented Audax Private Equity in the $912.5 million sale of CorEvitas to Thermo Fisher Scientific. (Named 2024 Mid-Market Deal of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions).
- Represents leading universities in alleged financial aid price fixing antitrust class actions.
- Represents major bank and foreign exchange trading platform in putative fraud and antitrust class action.
- Represents multiple foreign clients in an international criminal antitrust investigation.
- Represents a leading engineering firm and its subsidiaries in a federal antitrust investigation.
- Represents private equity sponsor and its portfolio company in state civil antitrust investigation.
Representative matters while at the DOJ Antitrust Division:
- United States v. Novelis Inc. and Aleris Corp., as lead trial counsel of a 24-member team of attorneys, economists, and paralegals in a successful challenge to the merger of leading automotive aluminum autobody sheet suppliers. The case was the first use of arbitration by the Antitrust Division to resolve a merger dispute.
- United States v. Parker‐Hannifin Corp. and CLARCOL, Inc., as lead litigation counsel of a 15-member team of attorneys, economists and paralegals through investigation, litigation, and successful settlement of consummated $4.3 billion merger in the aviation fuel filtration products market.
- Merger of BB&T Corp and SunTrust Bank, Inc., as lead attorney of the investigation into one of the largest bank mergers in U.S. history.
- United States v. AT&T, Inc. and Time Warner, Inc., as trial counsel in the challenge to one of the largest proposed mergers in telecommunications history.
- United States v. Aetna, Inc. and Humana Inc., as trial counsel responsible for preparing an expert witness for successful trial testimony in the proposed merger of two of the largest insurance companies in the United States. The case resulted in verdict and judgment in the United States’ favor.
- United States v. United Continental Holdings, Inc., et al., as litigation counsel in a challenge of an airline’s acquisition of takeoff and landing rights (slots) at Newark Liberty International Airport.