Nana Wilberforce
Partner
Nana Wilberforce focuses her regulatory and government affairs practice on matters involving antitrust and competition. Ms. Wilberforce has extensive experience navigating clients through the Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program in cartel enforcement matters. She has counseled clients through shifts in competition policy brought on by presidential administration changes and has worked to secure merger clearance for transactions across a range of industries, including healthcare, biotechnology and energy.
Ms. Wilberforce’s practice includes a commitment to public service and pro bono contributions. She was also selected as WilmerHale’s 2017 Pickering fellow and spent six months working full time with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and is currently part of the litigation team co-counseled with LDF challenging Georgia’s voting law, S.B. 202. In the past she has worked with Children’s Law Center to represent a client in the successful adoption of the client’s foster child and grandniece and is currently working with The Legal Aid Society on an appellate matter.
Ms. Wilberforce is a member of the Antitrust section of the American Bar Association, a member of the Antitrust, UCL and Privacy section of the California Lawyers Association, and a member of the Military Spouse JD Network.
Experience
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Cartel Investigations and Litigation
Ms. Wilberforce has extensive internal investigation and litigation experience, including experience in developing strategies in responding to price-fixing allegations, often from both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission. She has helped to persuade authorities to close investigations without taking enforcement action and has secured leniency protection for clients. A selection of recent cartel investigations and litigation matters include:
- Representing a major natural gas company in DOJ investigation of leasing practices.
- Representing an auto parts manufacturer in navigating investigations by the DOJ and the European Commission.
- Representing a financial institution in a class action alleging a conspiracy to fix prices of Mexican government bonds.
- Obtaining summary judgment on behalf of Regal Cinemas in litigation over alleged antitrust violations brought by a competing theatre owner.
- Representing a company in the financial sector in navigating a no poach investigation.
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Merger Clearance
Ms. Wilberforce has represented clients in a variety of transactions, with experience in serving counsel as both the buyer and the seller. She has particular experience in healthcare and technology industries and working to serve the needs of repeat clients, including:
- Assisting Analog Devices in securing antitrust clearance for its $2.5 billion acquisition of Hittite Microwave.
- Assisting MKS Instruments in securing antitrust clearance for its $980 million acquisition of Newport Corporation.
- Assisting MKS Instruments in securing antitrust clearance of its purchase of the assets of Granville-Phillips, a division of Brooks Automation, for $87 million.
- Preparing an executive of a major telecommunications company for testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.
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Healthcare
While in law school, Ms. Wilberforce completed a joint-degree program, earning a master’s degree in public health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Prior to pursuing her legal education, Ms. Wilberforce worked in the healthcare industry. She held positions as an associate at Triage Consulting Group (now Cloudmed), where she performed compliance and payment review support for area hospitals and health systems, and as a research analyst at the Stanford Center on Longevity, where she examined population data on aging patterns as part of the Global Aging Project. She has leveraged this background to aid clients with a variety of matters, including:
- Serving as part of a corporate monitorship to a national health care company.
- Representing health care company employees in criminal healthcare fraud investigations conducted by the DOJ.
- Advising a national healthcare company on the acquisition of an ambulance services company.
- Advising a national healthcare company in obtaining antitrust clearance for merger with a physician-services company.
Recognition
- Recognized by Bloomberg Law in its 2024 “They’ve Got Next: 40 Under 40” listing.
- Named a 2023 "Top Antitrust Lawyer" by the Daily Journal.
- Named to Los Angeles Business Journal's 2023 Leaders of Influence: Minority Attorneys list.
- Recognized as a “Next Generation Lawyer” in the 2022–2024 editions of The Legal 500 for her antitrust practice.
- Named to the 2022 “40 Under 40 Nation’s Best Advocates" list by the National Bar Association.
- Named a 2022–2024 Southern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers.
- Named a 2020 and 2021 New York Metro Rising Star by Super Lawyers.
- Named to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America list.
Insights & News
Credentials
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Education
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JD, Columbia Law School, 2014
Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Frederick Douglass Moot Court -
MPH, Mailman School of Public Health, 2014
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BA, Human Biology, Stanford University, 2008
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Admissions
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New York
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California
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District of Columbia
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Credentials
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Education
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JD, Columbia Law School, 2014
Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Frederick Douglass Moot Court -
MPH, Mailman School of Public Health, 2014
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BA, Human Biology, Stanford University, 2008
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Admissions
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New York
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California
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District of Columbia
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