Meet the Acting Assistant Attorney General

Joseph Wayland was appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division in April 2012.

Mr. Wayland joined the U.S. Department of Justice on September 27, 2010 as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Enforcement in the Antitrust Division. In addition to managing key merger reviews, he was responsible for all of the Division’s civil litigation and non-merger investigations. Mr. Wayland also served as the Division’s chief trial counsel.

Most recently, in U.S. v. H&R Block, Mr. Wayland led the Division’s first successful litigated merger challenge in nearly a decade, obtaining a permanent injunction blocking H&R Block’s attempted acquisition of TaxAct after a two week trial. He then led the Division’s challenge to AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile, which the parties abandoned after four months of litigation.

Prior to his appointment in the Justice Department in 2010, Mr. Wayland was a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where his practice focused on complex business litigation, including antitrust and securities matters, and internal investigations. He has served as lead trial counsel in numerous federal and state trials involving antitrust, fraud, contract and regulatory matters. He was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2009.