Mark J. Botti focuses on antitrust matters.

Before joining Akin Gump in 2007, Mr. Botti served for 13 years at the Department of Justice in a wide range of litigation and policy positions within the Antitrust Division. As chief of the Litigation I Section, Mr. Botti litigated complex antitrust claims on behalf of the United States, bringing monopolization cases, horizontal conspiracy suits and merger challenges in some of the most vital sectors of the economy, including health care, insurance, forestry products and agriculture. During his five-year tenure as chief of Litigation I, his team tried the only merger case (United States v. UPM-Kymmene Oyj) and the only monopolization case (United States v. Dentsply) litigated to judgment by the Antitrust Division. Over the course of his career, Mr. Botti appeared and played a major role in 10 cases that the Department litigated.

Mr. Botti has extensive, high-level experience involving the antitrust review of mergers and acquisitions. In his position as chief of the Litigation I Section, he supervised among many other matters the Antitrust Division’s investigation of the acquisition of Maytag by Whirlpool and the partial challenge to UnitedHealth’s acquisition of PacifiCare. Prior to heading the Litigation I Section, Mr. Botti served for three years as assistant chief of the Litigation II Section, where he worked on a number of other matters, including the Division’s challenges to Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Northrop Grumman, Georgia-Pacific’s acquisition of Fort James and Volvo’s acquisition of Mack Trucks from Renault. During his time at the Division, Mr. Botti consulted regularly with international antitrust enforcement authorities on particular matters and the development of their merger regulations and practices. He appeared in eight merger cases that the Department litigated during his tenure, three of which were tried to judgment.

In addition to his litigation and investigation activities, during his time with the Department, Mr. Botti provided policy and enforcement advice to the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division and to the broader executive branch and the private bar. He worked in many industrial sectors, including mass consumer products, national defense, industrial manufacturing and mass media. He was the career Division official who directly oversaw the extensive hearings held by the Division and the Federal Trade Commission on health care during the years 2004-2005 and the drafting of the agencies’ joint seminal report, Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition.

Before joining the government, Mr. Botti was a partner at another Washington, D.C., law firm.

Mr. Botti received his A.B. in 1982 from Dartmouth College and his J.D. cum laude in 1985 from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He clerked for the Honorable John M. Manos of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio from 1985 to 1987 and for the Honorable David A. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit from 1987 to 1988. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

Active in the American Bar Association, Mr. Botti is a vice chair of the Health Care and Pharmaceuticals Committee and is a co-editor of the health care portions of the Association’s Antitrust Law Developments VI (2007). He has made numerous public presentations on antitrust litigation, mergers and joint ventures, and health care, including "Divergence at Home: Comments on the Differences between the Federal Antitrust Enforcement Agencies on How to Judge the Legality of Reverse Payments" (ACI In-House Counsel Forum on Pharmaceutical Antitrust, 2007), as well as written on the following topics: “Observations on and from the Antitrust Division’s Buyer-Side Cases: How Can ‘Lower Prices’ Violate the Antitrust Laws,” (ABA Antitrust Section, Washington, D.C., April 18, 2007); “Private Standard Setting in the United States Healthcare Sector,” (OECD, Paris, France, October 12, 2004); "Comments on the Nuts and Bolts of a Civil Antitrust Investigation by the Department of Justice Involving the Healthcare Industry," paper published by John J. Miles, Health Care & Antitrust Law: Principles and Practice, v. 3, pt. III (West 2000); and “Virtual Mergers of Hospitals: When Does the Per Se Rule Apply?” (ABA Health Care Antitrust Chronicle, v. 12, no. 3, 1998).