Rani Habash

Rani A. Habash advises clients on the antitrust aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. He has helped guide industry-leading companies to successful strategic transactions in the face of intense antitrust scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Senate and House Judiciary Committees, state attorneys general, and international competition authorities.

Using his expertise in economics and significant experience in dealing with antitrust agencies, Mr. Habash has helped clients secure regulatory clearance in numerous high-profile transactions, including deals between American Airlines/US Airways, Albertsons /Safeway,  CVS Health/Target Corporation, FMC Corporation/DowDuPont, Medco/Express Scripts,  Monster.com/Yahoo! HotJobs, and OfficeMax/Office Depot, among others. In addition, Mr. Habash regularly helps companies further key corporate strategies by providing antitrust counseling on conduct, distribution, government affairs, and public relations issues.

Mr. Habash has held leadership positions in the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law on the Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Counseling, and Membership and Diversity Committees. He also served as the editor of The Antitrust Counselor, an ABA newsletter with practical antitrust guidance for in-house counsel.

Mr. Habash is a frequent author and speaker on cutting-edge antitrust issues. Notably, he has helped develop the Dechert Antitrust Merger Enforcement Timing Tracker (DAMITT), which tracks and reports on U.S. antitrust merger investigation trends. Data from DAMITT has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Time, TheStreet, and many other leading publications.

EDUCATION :

• West Virginia University, B.S., Economics, 2006, summa cum laude
• The George Washington University Law School, J.D., 2009, Order of the Coif

ADMISSIONS :

• District of Columbia
• Virginia

MEMBERSHIPS :

• Vice Chair, ABA Section of Antitrust Law’s Membership and Diversity Committee (2017-present)
• Vice Chair, ABA Section of Antitrust Law’s Corporate Counseling Committee (2014-2017)
• Young Lawyer Representative, ABA Section of Antitrust Law’s Mergers & Acquisitions Committee (2012-2014)

EXPERIENCE :

• Acted for US Airways in its successful merger with American Airlines to create a premier global carrier with an equity value of more than US$17 billion after an intense DOJ and congressional review of the transaction.
• Guided Albertsons and its parent Cerberus to a settlement with the FTC and several states that enabled the parties to complete the US$9.4 billion acquisition of Safeway in the largest supermarket merger ever by combined store count.
• Secured unconditional FTC clearance for Monster Worldwide’s acquisition of HotJobs from Yahoo! Inc. Both parties operated leading online job boards. After a full FTC investigation, including the issuance of second requests, the FTC unconditionally cleared the transaction.
• Obtained unconditional FTC clearance for Kinray, Inc., the largest drug wholesaler to independent pharmacies in the New York City area, in its US$1.4 billion sale to Cardinal Health, one of the leading drug wholesalers in the United States.
• Represented dialysis provider DSI Renal in its successful US$760 million strategic sale to DaVita, one of the nation’s leading dialysis firms.Obtained unconditional DOJ clearance for One Equity Partners’ US$600 million sale of Prodigy Health Group, the nation’s largest independent third-party administrator of self-funded health care plans, to Aetna.