| Regulatory and Government Affairs |
WilmerHale’s Regulatory and Government Affairs Department comprises approximately 150 lawyers and other professionals whose practices focus on advising clients and litigating matters where governmental regulation, public policy and business intersect. The Department’s capabilities are global, extending from the United States to Europe to Asia and beyond. We have lawyers admitted to practice in 10 countries. Our clients include major multinational corporations and financial institutions, trade associations and government entities across a range of industries, with particular focus on the aviation, defense, communications, education, energy, financial services, high tech and pharmaceutical sectors.
The Department’s professionals have an intimate knowledge of how government works in the countries where we practice. Not surprisingly, over 100 of our lawyers have served in senior government positions in the United States, in Europe and in multilateral organizations. These include the White House, independent agencies and Departments of the Federal Government, the United States Congress, the European Commission, the German Federal Government and the World Trade Organization. Click here to see a detailed list of all firm professionals with government service.
Clients turn to us to handle complex, visible and critically-important controversy and counseling matters, whether to achieve a particular business objective, such as merger or other regulatory agency approvals or licensing authority; to ensure regulatory compliance and manage governmental investigations, often when the client’s reputation is at stake; to devise and implement policy and political strategies in anticipation of future government activity or to litigate before agencies, the courts and international institutions in the United States, the EU and elsewhere. Recent representative matters include:
- Secured for Lucent approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for its merger with Alcatel;
- Representing the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in its application to the Federal Reserve Board and New York State Banking department to open a branch in New York;
- Secured approval for Statoil’s merger with Norsk Hydro’s petroleum business, a merger that created the world’s largest off shore production group;
- Obtained for The Hartford Financial Group dismissal of all antitrust claims in the Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Multidistrict Litigation;
- Obtained a grant of immunity from US antitrust laws from the US Department of Transportation for alliance agreements among nine members of the Star Alliance, including United Airlines and Lufthansa German Airlines;
- Representing The Boeing Company in the United States’ challenge to EU subsidies to Airbus before the World Trade Organization;
- Secured for United Airlines from the Department of Transportation authority to introduce non-stop service between Washington, DC and Beijing;
- Representing Verizon in its suits arising out of the National Security Wiretap program;
- Represented an international consortium of telecommunications carriers in negotiating a sensitive national security agreement with the FBI and the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Defense, concerning the operation and ownership of a new, undersea cable between the United States and several Asian countries;
- Advised PhRMA during negotiations and Congressional passage of landmark FDA reform legislation;
- Negotiated on behalf of Textron a first-in-the-nation settlement simultaneously resolving environmental and government contract claims relating to contamination at an active military base; and
- Advised Cisco and Google in House International Relations Committee hearings on Chinese internet censorship.
While the Department is organized along the nine listed Practice Groups, our clients benefit from the diverse capabilities, perspectives and nationalities of professional across Practice Groups and across Departments.