FTC Chairman Joe Simons Announces the Planned Departure of Bureau of Competition Director Bruce Hoffman

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons announced today that FTC Bureau of Competition Director Bruce Hoffman will be leaving the agency in November after serving in the position for more than two years.

“Bruce has done an outstanding job leading the FTC’s vigorous antitrust enforcement efforts for the last two years,” Simons said. “His keen insight and tireless work have benefited American consumers by strengthening and advancing the Commission’s competition agenda.”

Simons announced his intention to appoint, Ian R. Conner, currently Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition, to succeed Hoffman. Conner has served as Deputy Director since September 2017.

During Hoffman’s tenure as Director of the Bureau of Competition in the last two years, the FTC challenged 42 proposed mergers, including 20 transactions that were abandoned or restructured, either as a result of an FTC investigation or after the agency initiated litigation. Under Hoffman’s leadership, the Bureau successfully litigated nine trials. These include winning a nearly-half-billion dollar judgement against Abbvie, winning its monopolization case against Qualcomm, settling the ground-breaking Actavis reverse payment litigation, and extending its winning streak in hospital merger challenges at the appellate level with a win before the Eighth Circuit in the challenge to Sanford’s acquisition of the Mid Dakota Clinic.

Hoffman also spearheaded the creation of the Bureau of Competition’s Technology Task Force (now known as the Technology Enforcement Division), created in February 2019 to monitor competition in U.S. technology markets, investigate potential anticompetitive conduct in those markets, and take enforcement actions when warranted.

Before joining the agency in July 2017, Hoffman was Global Co-Head of Shearman & Sterling’s Antitrust Group. Previously he led the global competition practice at Hunton & Williams, representing clients in the supermarket, funeral, and music industries, among others. Hoffman earned a B.A. from Penn State University and a J.D. from the University of Florida, College of Law. He served on the Florida Law Review and was the recipient of the W.D. McDonald Prize for graduating first in his law school class.

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