Daniel Zach is an antitrust and competition partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He is a former Assistant Director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with extensive experience handling high‑profile and cutting‑edge merger investigations and litigations. Dan focuses his practice on providing comprehensive antitrust advice and counseling to help clients navigate the evolving antitrust regulatory environment, including advising on antitrust regulatory reviews of proposed mergers and litigating court challenges filed by U.S. antitrust enforcers. Over the course of his career, Dan has played a key role in numerous trials, serving as the first‑chair litigator in important merger cases in federal and administrative courts. He has extensive courtroom experience and has successfully developed and implemented strategies to win cases involving difficult antitrust issues, including innovation competition, bundling, urban hospital competition, high‑tech products, “fix‑it‑first” strategies and failing firm defenses. Dan has handled matters involving complex antitrust issues that resulted in FTC consent orders. His experience extends to working with foreign antitrust regulators, including those in the European Union (EU), as well as state antitrust enforcers.
As Assistant Director of the FTC’s Mergers I Division, Dan oversaw the review of mergers in industries including pharmaceuticals, life sciences, medical devices, defense and technology, and led major litigation cases. Among other major matters, Dan brought the landmark Illumina/Grail case that resulted in the first successful court challenge of a vertical merger in several decades. Dan also engaged with Commissioners, Bureau of Competition and Bureau of Economics leadership, Congress, foreign and domestic antitrust enforcers and others on important issues related to the division’s work.
From 2012 to 2020, Dan served as the Deputy Assistant Director of the Mergers I Division. In that role, he supervised merger reviews, related enforcement actions, and led litigation matters. Dan led groundbreaking cases involving monopolist acquisitions of nascent competitors, and he litigated the first potential competition case in more than 30 years. He also represented the division in a range of initiatives, including developing vertical merger guidelines, creating agency best practices for investigations and litigations, and presenting to other U.S. and foreign antitrust authorities and the public on various antitrust subject matters.
From 2006 to 2012, Dan served as Counsel to the Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition and a staff attorney in the Mergers III Division leading investigations in the energy industry.
In private practice, Dan has handled merger investigations involving Second Requests issued by U.S. antitrust agencies and represented clients facing FTC and Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations into various non-merger competition issues. He has also played leading roles defeating recent merger challenges brought by the FTC and DOJ.
