Joseph Simons is an American attorney who formerly served as chairman of the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction o ...

Education

Simons received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in economics and history from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1980 and his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice l ...

''cum laude'' from

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

in 1983.

FTC career

Simons was chief of the Federal Trade Commission's competition bureau from 2001 to 2003. He was a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. 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. On October 19, 2017, the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

announced that President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

would nominate Simons to be chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. He took office on May 1, 2018, and was scheduled to depart on January 29, 2021; he was replaced as chair on January 21. Notably, the FTC under Simons filed an antitrust lawsuit against

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

in December 2020.

References

Living people American lawyers Cornell University alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni Federal Trade Commission personnel Year of birth missing (living people) Trump administration personnel {{Law-bio-stub