Attorney General Eric Holder Appoints Sharis Arnold Pozenas Acting Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today the appointment of Sharis Arnold Pozen as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

“Sharis is a highly experienced antitrust enforcer and I am confident that she will continue to lead the Antitrust Division in its mission to vigorously enforce the antitrust laws,” said Attorney General Holder. “Sharis has been actively engaged in all significant antitrust matters before the division, and her appointment will ensure that the decision-making on pending antitrust matters is seamless.”

Pozen will become Acting Assistant Attorney General upon the departure of Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney.

Pozen came to the department’s Antitrust Division in February 2009, as Chief of Staff and Counsel, and has served as a key deputy to Varney.

Pozen is instrumental in the overall enforcement and management of the division and played a leading role on several matters, including in the healthcare, technology, energy and agriculture industries. This includes the department’s pending lawsuit against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), which alleges that BCBSM’s agreements with hospitals stifle competition, and a settlement with United Regional Health Care System of Wichita Falls, Texas, that prohibited anticompetitive contracts with health insurers–the first case brought by the department since 1999 that challenged a monopolist with engaging in traditional anticompetitive unilateral conduct.

Pozen was the lead antitrust official for the CPTN Holdings LLC and Novell Inc. matter in which the division required the companies to change the terms of their proposed merger in order to address open source concerns.

Pozen also led the division’s efforts in the litigation and settlement involving George’s Inc. in which the department required George’s to make important capital improvements at its Harrisonburg, Va., poultry processing facility, and in the Stericycle Inc./Healthcare Waste Solutions Inc. deal in which the department required divestitures to preserve competition for waste treatment services in the New York City metropolitan area.

Pozen was also an important principal in the department’s joint agriculture workshops with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, its update of the Horizontal Merger Guidelines and its revision of the division’s Merger Remedy Guidelines.

Prior to joining the department, she was Practice Group Director and a partner in Hogan & Hartson’s (now Hogan Lovells) Antitrust, Competition and Consumer Protection Group where she worked from 1995 to February 2009, on a variety of antitrust matters in the technology and healthcare industries.

Prior to joining Hogan & Hartson, Pozen worked for five years at the Federal Trade Commission as an Attorney Advisor, as Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Competition and as a staff attorney.

Pozen received her B.A. from Connecticut College in 1986 and her J.D. from Washington University in 1989.