Biography: Competition

Stephen M Axinn is the senior partner in Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP (AV&H), which has offices in New York, Hartford and Washington, DC. Mr Axinn has represented many of the world's leading corporate and individual clients in precedent-setting cases in trial and appellate courts throughout the US. He has counselled clients in many of the most significant merger and acquisition transactions over the past 45 years. Mr Axinn is also an experienced antitrust criminal defence attorney.

Prior to forming AV&H, Mr Axinn headed the antitrust and trade regulation department at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. He is the author of a number of scholarly articles on antitrust subjects. He has been an adjunct professor of law at both Columbia and NYU law schools. He is co-author of the definitive treatise on the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

In 2011, Mr Axinn successfully represented Zuffa LLC, the owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Mixed Martial Arts promoter in connection with an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. He was counsel to Bemis Company in connection with its acquisition of the assets of Rio Tinto's Food Packaging Americas assets. He was successful in obtaining affirmance by the second circuit of summary judgment for the insurance company, EmblemHealth in connection with New York City's challenge to the combination with GHI and HIP. In 2009, he was lead counsel to Ball Corp in its acquisition of certain aluminium-can manufacturing assets of Anheuser-Busch Inbev. Mr Axinn represented MasterCard International's board of directors regarding the antitrust aspects of the design of the initial public offering of MasterCard securities.

In 2006, he represented BellSouth in the merger with AT&T. In 2005, he successfully represented GameStop in its acquisition of Electronics Boutique, and Movie Gallery in its acquisition of Hollywood Video.

In 2004, Mr Axinn successfully defended Albert Einstein College of Medicine in securing dismissal of a major national class action complaint against it in the federal court in Washington, DC.

Mr Axinn was lead trial counsel for SunGard in the landmark case of United States v SunGard (Comdisco) (DDC 2001), in which the court held, after trial, that the government had failed in its effort to block the SunGard-Comdisco acquisition.

Beginning in late 1999, he was retained as lead counsel to the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice in connection with the investigation and successful challenge of the proposed merger of MCI-WorldCom and Sprint, which the parties abandoned in July 2000.

Mr Axinn served as an adviser to the United States Sentencing Commission. He was the monthly antitrust columnist for the New York Law Journal for 10 years. He regularly appears on television news programs to discuss antitrust matters.