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Douglas Melamed Biography, Single-Firm Conduct Hearings, June 2006

Douglas Melamed

A. Douglas Melamed is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and co-chair of the firm's Antitrust and Competition Department. He has significant experience in government investigations; in government and private litigation, particularly in the technology, telecommunications, and financial services sectors; in the merger review process; and in antitrust counseling. Recent public matters that he has handled include the Verizon/MCI and Bayer/Aventis mergers and representation of Rambus Inc., in litigation before the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Philips in litigation in the Federal Circuit, and Regal Theatres in district court litigation

Mr. Melamed served in the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, from October 1996 to January 2001, first as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and then heading the Division as Acting Assistant Attorney General. While Principal Deputy, Mr. Melamed was responsible for a large part of the Division's civil non-merger and merger investigations and litigation, the Division's appellate and international matters, and policy matters involving, among others, the communications, electricity and tobacco industries.

Before joining the Antitrust Division, Mr. Melamed was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and chair of the firm's Antitrust and Consumer Protection Practice Group. He handled major acquisitions in the merger clearance process, argued cases in the United States Supreme Court and other appellate courts, litigated in federal and state trial courts and before the Federal Trade Commission, and counseled numerous firms on a wide range of antitrust matters.

Mr. Melamed 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 and is a Contributing Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal.

Mr. Melamed received his B.A. from Yale University in 1967 and his J.D. 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.

Updated December 29, 2023