William Kovacic

William Evan Kovacic was the Commissioner of the United States Federal Trade Commission from January 4, 2006 to October 3, 2011. President George W. Bush designated him to serve as FTC Chairman on March 30, 2008.^[1] President Barack Obama designated Jon Leibowitz as Chairman on March 2, 2009, replacing Kovacic. Kovacic replaced Deborah Platt Majoras.^[2]

Early years

Kovacic's father worked for the Department of Energy in Washington as a chemical engineer. He attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School. Kovacic graduated with a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1974, and received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1978 where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.^[3]

Career

Prior to his appointment as Commissioner, Kovacic was the E.K. Gubin Professor of Government Contracts Law at George Washington University Law School, where he began teaching in 1999. He previously taught antitrust law at George Mason University.^[4] He was the FTC’s General Counsel from 2001 through the end of 2004. Kovacic earlier worked at the Commission from 1979 to 1983, first with the Bureau of Competition’s Planning Office and later as an attorney advisor to former Commissioner George W. Douglas. After leaving the FTC in 1983, Kovacic was an associate with the Washington, DC, office of Bryan Cave, where he practiced in the firm’s antitrust and government contracts departments, until joining the George Mason University School of Law in 1986.

Earlier in his career, he spent one year on the majority staff of the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which was chaired by Senator Philip A. Hart.^[5]

Since 1992, Kovacic has served as an adviser on antitrust and consumer protection issues to the governments of Armenia, Benin, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Guyana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Panama, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. He also currently serves on the International Committee of the Institute of Competition Law.

He lives in Virginia, with his wife, Kathryn Fenton, an antitrust attorney.

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