The US Department of Justice's antitrust division is, and will continue to be, a tone-setter for antitrust enforcement around the world, and all eyes were on the DoJ when the new assistant attorney general in charge of the division, Christine Varney, took over the agency in mid-2008 amid promises of a more aggressive enforcement agenda. While the DoJ's bite hasn't quite matched it's bark, lawyers who spend countless hours before the DoJ say its measured approach to civil cases in 2009 has only buttressed the division's already world-leading criminal cartel enforcement practice.