William C. MacLeod is a Partner at Kelley Drye. MacLeod chairs the firm’s Antitrust and Competition and co-chairs the Consumer Financial Protection practice groups. A past chair of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, Bill is a former bureau director at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and taskforce member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). He offers his clients decades of experience in competition law, trade regulation, advertising, privacy and security issues. Bill represents some of the most prominent drivers of innovation and industry today, from new ventures to multi-national corporations.
In mergers and acquisitions, Bill has obtained FTC and Department of Justice clearance of numerous deals in a range of industries, including medical devices, grocery products, wine making, defense contracting and steel manufacturing. Bill also has helped clients protect themselves from hostile takeovers, and served as special counsel for a government investigation of one of the world’s largest and most complex manufacturing industry mergers.
In litigation, Bill and his teams obtained one of the largest judgments ever awarded in an advertising and antitrust case, defended a major marketer in the FTC’s first trial under the modern unfairness doctrine, resolved the FTC’s first preliminary injunction action in an ad-substantiation case, handled investigations of privacy and data security practices, and obtained dismissal of a multi-district price-fixing allegations.
In addition, Bill counsels and defends companies and trade associations on pricing, advertising, distribution and competitor relations. In his work with trade associations and their members, he has challenged anticompetitive and onerous regulations and advocated sensible policies on competition, finance, technology, health, privacy, and data security. He also represents companies in advertising, antitrust and intellectual property disputes before the state and federal courts, the FTC and the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
