Daniel G. Swanson is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, with offices in Los Angeles and Brussels. Mr. Swanson has Co-Chaired Gibson Dunn’s 185-lawyer-strong Antitrust Practice Group since 1996, and specializes in domestic and international antitrust and competition law, including civil and criminal litigation, merger matters, internal investigations, and counseling. He is a member of the California and Brussels Bars and is a solicitor of England and Wales. He received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1984. Mr. Swanson also holds Ph.D. (1985) and Masters (1984) degrees in economics from Harvard University, where he was a Harvard Teaching Fellow.
Mr. Swanson has been a trial and appellate litigator for 30 years, dealing with antitrust cases in a wide array of industries. He also counsels clients on mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, and handles merger-clearance matters before the FTC, DOJ, and European Commission, and merger‑related civil litigation. In addition to his antitrust work, Mr. Swanson has acted for clients in a wide variety of non-competition-related commercial matters and business disputes, involving areas such as contracting, franchising, licensing, advertising and insurance. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit and the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits. He is also qualified to practice and appear before the Courts of the European Union.
Mr. Swanson’s name appears in the major publications that rank the world’s leading antitrust and competition lawyers. Who’s Who Legal reports that “Daniel Swanson … scores very highly for his ‘tenacious and persuasive’litigation practice across a wide range of competition matters.” Described byChambers as “a highly adept trial lawyer” and as “a ‘tough opponent’ in civil and criminal litigation, alleged cartel matters and IP-related issues,” he has been listed as an Antitrust “Litigation Star” in the Institutional Investor’sBenchmark Litigation Guide, and identified as a leading antitrust specialist in The U.S. Legal 500, Global Competition Review’s Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers, Euromoney Legal Group’s Guide to the World’s Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, Mondaq’sGuide to Leading Competition Attorneys and Practical Law PLC’s Which Lawyer?
Mr. Swanson’s practice has encompassed virtually every aspect of antitrust and competition law. He has litigated claims of alleged price fixing, monopolization and market dominance, predation, leveraging, bundling, standard setting, tying, exclusive dealing, group boycotts, refusals to deal, and price discrimination, among others, and has handled scores of class action lawsuits (e.g., In re Electronic Books Antitrust Litigation, In re Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, In re Rubber Chemicals Antitrust Litigation, In re Monochloroacetic Acid Antitrust Litigation, In re Fresh and Process Potatoes Antitrust Litigation, In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, In re Polyurethane Foam Antitrust Litigation; In re Automotive Refinishing Paint Litigation, In re Airline Ticket Commission Antitrust Litigation).
Mr. Swanson frequently represents clients in connection with antitrust grand jury investigations, plea negotiations, and amnesty, leniency and immunity applications in the United States and the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Latin America, including more than twenty international cartel investigations during the last dozen years. At the invitation of the U.S. DOJ, Mr. Swanson served as a Non-Governmental Advisor (NGA) to the Cartels Working Group of the International Competition Network (ICN) and participated as a speaker at the 5th Annual ICN Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006. In 2010, he was invited as part of a joint IBA-ABA delegation to advise the Competition Commission of India on “best practices” in cartel enforcement.
As a fully-qualified EU member state practitioner, as well as a U.S. lawyer, Mr. Swanson is regularly called upon to handle international antitrust and competition matters for U.S., European, Canadian, Latin American, and Asian clients. He has served as Co-Chair of the ABA Antitrust Section’s International Committee (2002-06) and as Editor-in-Chief of the Antitrust Section’s First Supplement to Competition Laws Outside the United States (2005). Mr. Swanson has been an Officer of the Antitrust Committee of the International Bar Association since 2012, and served on the Editorial Board of the IBA’s publication Competition Law International from 2007-2012. He is also a member of the Competition Section of the Law Society of England and Wales. He has served in the past as a member of Gibson Dunn’s International Management Committee.
Mr. Swanson regularly handles antitrust and competition matters involving patents, copyrights and other intellectual property rights and was asked to testify regarding his views on standard setting in the 2002 DOJ-FTC Joint Hearings regarding Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy. He is the author (with Prof. William J. Baumol) ofReasonable and Nondiscriminatory (RAND) Royalties, Standards Selection, and Control of Market Power, 73 Antitrust L.J. 1 (2005) and The New Economy and Ubiquitous Competitive Price Discrimination: Identifying Defensible Criteria of Market Power, 70 Antitrust L.J. 661 (2003), which the U.S. Supreme Court relied on in Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink, 547 U.S. 28 (2006). Mr. Swanson also serves as an advisor (NGA) to the ICN Unilateral Conduct Working Group in its work focused on monopolization and dominance law.
Mr. Swanson has broad litigation and counseling experience in a wide variety of communications, media and entertainment fields. He has frequently represented motion picture industry clients (such as DreamWorks Animation SKG, Sony Pictures, 21st Century Fox, MGM, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers) in antitrust litigation, government investigations, M&A transactions, and counseling matters. Mr. Swanson also regularly advises and litigates on behalf of cable television industry clients (e.g., Thompson Everett v. National Cable Advertising, 57 F.3d 1317 (4th Cir. 1995)). He has also handled antitrust matters involving the music industry, broadcast television, telecommunications, broadband, social media, game publishing, radio broadcasting, newspaper publishing, and advertising.
Mr. Swanson is a regular speaker on antitrust and competition topics, has appeared on CNN’s Moneyline as an antitrust expert and is often quoted on antitrust matters in legal publications. He has contributed to leading antitrust journals and treatises (including Antitrust and Trade Regulation, Antitrust Law Developments, Competition Laws Outside the United States, The Antitrust Adviser, and the Antitrust Law Journal) and is a member of the Board of Editors of the LexisNexis Antitrust Report. He is also a member of the American Economic Association.
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