Joseph J Simons

Mr. Simons is currently chair of the Federal Trade Commission. He was previously a partner and co-chair of the Antitrust Group at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He was previously in charge of antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission, serving as Director of the Bureau of Competition from 2001 until 2003. Among his accomplishments, Mr. Simons was responsible for overseeing the re-invigoration of the FTC’s non-merger enforcement program. Under his leadership, the Bureau initiated over 100 investigations and produced more non-merger enforcement actions in one year than in any other year in the prior two decades or since. Mr. Simons is also a co-developer of “Critical Loss Analysis,” a technique for market definition that has been incorporated into the Department of Justice and FTC Merger Guidelines, as well as applied in numerous court decisions. Mr. Simons received his A.B. in Economics and History from Cornell University in 1980 and his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.