Sean Royall Ends Tenure as FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy J. Muris today announced that M. Sean Royall, who has served as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition since June 2001, will be leaving the FTC, effective October 9, 2003, and returning to private practice.

For the past two years, Royall has played a key role in the FTC’s reemphasis on nonmerger antitrust work. Specifically, he has been instrumental in the Bureau’s efforts increasingly to employ the agency’s administrative litigation process as a forum for tackling cutting-edge antitrust issues, including issues relating to the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property law. Royall was centrally involved in formulating the FTC’s antitrust case against Rambus Inc., a developer of computer memory chip designs. The case involves allegations of abuse of a standard-setting process to achieve a monopoly in important technology markets, and Royall took a leading role in the recently completed, three-month trial.

Royall also has been one of the principal players in the FTC’s very active antitrust enforcement in the merger arena. In particular, Royall played a significant role in the Bureau’s analysis of the Pepsi/Quaker and General Mills/Pillsbury transactions. He also provided leadership on factually and legally complex investigations of mergers in e-commerce and the Internet.

Replacing Royall as Deputy Director will be D. Bruce Hoffman, who for the past two years has served as the Bureau of Competition’s Associate Director for Regional Litigation. Before joining the Commission in September 2001, Hoffman was a partner at the law firm of Hunton & Williams, where his practice focused on antitrust and unfair competition litigation. Hoffman has been active in the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section activities. He is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and the University of Florida College of Law.