The trend of lawyers moving or returning from high-level government positions to law firms continues as Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe gains a partner from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Alexander Okuliar (pictured), who has served for the past three years as attorney advisor to FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen, is now a partner in Orrick’s antitrust division in Washington. Okuliar has extensive experience as an advisor on competition matters within the energy, technology, manufacturing, pharma and healthcare, and retail sectors. Besides working at the FTC, his background includes tenures at the Department of Justice and the law firm O’Melveny & Myers.
Okuliar joins Orrick at a juncture marked by stepped-up enforcement activity in the pharma space, centering on reverse payment settlements. There has also been a great deal of activity at the intersection of IP and antitrust laws, Okuliar said. That activity has manifested itself at the FTC in recent enforcement actions concerning the use of patents, and in actions from other enforcers outside the U.S.
“As to IP, there are a number of issues, such as lack of transparency and difficulty in finding an effective price discovery mechanism, that have fueled litigation implicating competition and consumer protection issues,” Okuliar continued. “We increasingly in the global economy have a separation between companies focused mainly on developing IP and then monetizing it, and companies acquiring IP on the open market and using it to develop and market products downstream. Companies are looking for effective ways to negotiate and price IP in this new open innovation environment. You’ve seen agency activity at the enforcement and policy levels in this regard, and, in the last few years in particular, private party litigation with antitrust claims, too.”
“In the U.S., for a number of years there has been a large push within the healthcare community, particularly on the providers’ side, for additional efficiencies through clinical integration,” he added.
Okuliar holds a law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School and undergraduate degrees from the Wharton School and the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania.