On December 13, 2024, Attorney General Merrick Garland presented the
DOJ’s 2024 Sherman Award to NAFUSA member William “Bill” Baer. Baer
headed anti-trust enforcement at both the FTC and the DOJ, winning
important victories in high profile cases and garnering accolades for his work.
He was twice named the best competition lawyer in the world by Global
Competition Review and twice honored as the Best Antitrust Lawyer in
Washington by Best Lawyers. He was named by The National Law Journal as
one of “The Decades Most Influential Lawyers.” In 2015 the FTC honored him
with the Miles W. Kirkpatrick Lifetime Achievement Award.

Baer served as the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division
under President Obama from January 2013 to April 2016 and thereafter as
Acting Associate Attorney General, the third highest position in the DOJ, until
January 2017. Among other complex high-profile cases, Baer led the DOJ’s
challenge to the InBev-Modelo merger and the proposed merger between US
Airways and American Airlines, securing a settlement in that case which
required the airlines to relinquish their stranglehold on over 130 slots at some
of the country’s busiest airports. He is currently a partner at Arnold & Porter
and since January 2020 has been a visiting fellow in Governance Studies at
the Brookings Institution.

According to AG Garland, Baer is rightly regarded as a preeminent expert on
antitrust issues of every kind. “Throughout his life, Bill has been a fierce
believer in competition and in protecting competition in almost everything he
does.” Garland went on to describe Baer as “…a kind, wise, and inspiring
leader, devoted to the people of this department and to the people of this
country.”