WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s lead antitrust official will not participate in the review of Comcast’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable, the department said Thursday.
The official, William J. Baer, assistant attorney general and head of the antitrust division, will not participate in considering the merger because he represented NBC Universal when it was taken over by Comcast in 2011.
Obama administration guidelines say that during the first two years in office, an appointee is forbidden from taking part in a decision involving a former client. The rules apply to clients represented in the two years before the appointee’s confirmation.
Mr. Baer was confirmed on Dec. 30, 2012. A notice documenting his representation of General Electric and NBC was filed in federal court on Jan. 20, 2011, within two years of his confirmation.
The decision will cost the Justice Department one its most vigorous defenders of antitrust law — a man who said last year that he supported the government’s decision to block the 2011 proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, even though his former law firm, Arnold & Porter, represented AT&T in the deal.