Juan Arteaga, a former associate and counsel at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett who most recently served as a deputy assistant attorney general for civil enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., has joined Crowell & Moring as an antitrust partner in New York.
Whether it s a merger, litigation, criminal prosecution or competition policy issue, Crowell regularly serves as the go-to antitrust counsel for U.S. and foreign clients, Arteaga said. So I viewed Crowell as providing me a great platform as I transition from government service back to private practice.
In his new role at the firm, which has been busy on the lateral hiring front in 2017, Arteaga plans to advise clients on civil and criminal antitrust matters, as well as complex commercial litigation matters, such as class actions, international arbitrations and securities and shareholder litigation. A portion of Arteaga s practice will also be dedicated to providing antitrust and litigation counsel to Latin American companies doing business with the U.S., and conversely U.S. companies needing legal representation in Latin America.
I ve dealt with a lot of these enforcers over my career, Arteaga said, who officially left Main Justice in January amid the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Arteaga joined the Justice Department s antitrust division from Simpson Thacher in 2013 as counsel to then-assistant attorney general William Bill Baer, who in May announced that he would return to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, having previously led the antitrust group at predecessor firm Arnold & Porter. In 2015, Arteaga was named chief of staff and senior counsel to the assistant attorney general in the antitrust division before being appointed as deputy assistant attorney general less than a year later.
While at the Justice Department, Arteaga had key roles on antitrust division teams challenging several high-profile mergers and asset sales, including a proposed $375 million merger between National Cinemedia Inc. and Screenvision Cinema Network LLC, two of the nation s largest cinema advertising services, which was called off before trial. He also played key roles in the division s challenging of mergers involving companies like Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Continental Holdings Inc., as well as a scuttled $3.3 billion deal between General Electric Co. and Sweden s AB Electrolux. (Arteaga said at a conference earlier this year that bipartisan, career antitrust staffers at the Justice Department not members of the Trump administration would determine what deals will pass regulatory muster.)