Scott Sher is a partner in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s Washington, D.C., office, where he is a leader of the firm’s antitrust practice. He currently serves on the firm’s board of directors.
Over the past 20 plus years, Scott has represented companies before the antitrust agencies in transactions totaling more than $1 trillion, including some of the most high-profile consolidation deals in the life sciences, technology and retail markets investigated by the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, and a host of regulatory authorities around the world. Some of his notable representations include Google, in connection with its acquisitions of ITA, Waze, and DoubleClick; Trulia, in connection with its acquisition by Zillow; Careem, in connection with its acquisition by Uber; Sun Microsystems, in connection with its acquisition by Oracle; HP, in connection with its acquisition of Compaq; Brocade, in connection with its acquisition of McDATA; Vivint Solar, in connection with its acquisition by Sunrun; and Varian, in connection with its acquisition by Agilent.
Having had the unique opportunity in his career to counsel clients in more than 1,000 deals, in a variety of situations, Scott not only has extensive experience in advocating before the antitrust agencies, but also working with clients to assess potential antitrust risk early on in the deal consideration process, putting his clients—both buyers and sellers—in the best position to understand and obtain the deal protection terms they need in order to meet their business objectives. Whether his client is a small firm with promising technology being acquired by a large private equity firm with a competitor portfolio company, a large multi-national client fending against a hostile tender offer by an aggressive competitor, or a retail grocer selling a portion of its business to a competitor where the FTC may demand multiple divestitures, Scott helps his clients understand the most likely deal outcomes, strategize to maximize deal value and certainty of close, and position the transaction to close in the shortest period of time possible.
Scott also brings substantial expertise in counseling clients on their business strategies. Having worked with companies in countless industries with different go-to-market strategies, Scott has a deep understanding of how the antitrust laws impact his clients’ distribution, pricing, and in-bound and out-bound licensing policies. His breadth of experience enables him to help clients efficiently achieve their objectives while steering them clear of potential liability. He guides major retail and technology firms to implement pricing and distribution policies and guidelines to deal with complex channel conflict issues, resale price maintenance concerns, exclusivity provisions, and price bundling strategies. He also works with life science companies who often engage in intricate inbound and outbound licensing programs that include issues ranging from potential Hart-Scott-Rodino reportability to ensuring that firms competing with each other in therapeutic markets can maximize the impact of collaborative arrangements without running afoul of competition laws.
