Maureen Ohlhausen
Partner; Former Acting Chairman
Wilson Sonsini; FTC
Maureen Ohlhausen is the co-chair of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s antitrust and competition practice. A partner in the Washington, D.C., office, she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Recent Events and Presentations
Competition Policy in a New Administration: Conservative Antitrust and the FTC
Please join ITIF for a virtual panel with renowned experts who will discuss how antitrust enforcement might change with the new administration, whether the Trump enforcers will carry forward any of the neo-Brandeisian policies, and what the future may have in store for the FTC.
AR/VR Policy Conference 2022
Join the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the XR Association for the second annual AR/VR Policy Conference.
Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “The FTC Rulemaking Agenda—Dwindled Innovation Through Regulation?”
Please join ITIF for the latest in a series of discussions on “dynamic antitrust,” in which ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy hosts leading scholars and antitrust enforcers to discuss the path forward in making antitrust a foundation for innovation.
Schumpeter v. Brandeis v. Chicago: The Antitrust Debate of Our Times
Watch the launch of ITIF's Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy in the Innovation Economy. An expert panel will respond to the presentation of an important new ITIF report outlining a set of guiding principles for “dynamic antitrust.”
Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “Killer Acquisitions”
ITIF and Competition Policy International hosted the fifth in a series of discussions on “dynamic antitrust,” in which Aurelien Portuese, ITIF’s director of antitrust and innovation policy, sits down with leading scholars and antitrust enforcers in Washington, Brussels, and elsewhere to discuss the path forward in making antitrust a foundation for innovation.
Innovation Priorities for the New Administration
Join the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Technology Policy Institute for a morning of expert panel discussions on how the incoming administration can accelerate the pace of innovation in the U.S. economy.
Regulating Broadband Privacy Under Title II: What Could Go Wrong?
With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considering a rulemaking to create broadband privacy rules, please join ITIF for a panel discussion on the wisdom or folly of sector-specific regulation, how to best balance consumer protections with the value unlocked by data analytics, and the broader context of ongoing changes in both telecommunications and privacy policy.
The Social Impact of Open Data
Join the Center for Data Innovation and the Sunlight Foundation for a panel discussion highlighting the impact of open data across education, health care, international development, and other fields.
