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DoubleClick Goes MIA At FTC Chief's Old Law Firm
theodp writes "FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras has refused to recuse herself from the agency's review of Google's $3.1B DoubleClick acquisition, despite her current and past ties to DoubleClick law firm Jones Day. EPIC and the Center for Digital Democracy, which had requested her recusal, are keeping up the pressure as DoubleClick-related pages and references have been disappearing from Jones Day's website. Although the statement issued by the Chairwoman suggests Jones Day's DoubleClick representation is limited to the European Commission, the Google cache of one MIA document boasts: 'Jones Day is advising DoubleClick Inc., the digital marketing technology provider, on the international and US antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc.'"
Pride goeth before the fall.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Well, it smells fishy to me. In a nutshell, you are asking why anybody in this position wouldn't recuse themselves?
If you were looking at a decision in whose outcome you didn't have a stake in, and there was any question of conflict of interest, it would be in your plain self-interest (as you point out) to recuse yourself.
This leaves only two logically possible explanations: either (a) she's acting against her own self-interest or (b) she has a stake in the outcome. In some universes where government accountability still functions, she could be doing both. But at least one of these has to be true.
In all fairness, we can't exclude the possibility that she is working against her own self-interest. Maybe the FTC simply can't come to a reasonable decision on anything like this without her unique and valuable participation. Maybe she's just really egotistical. Or maybe she's naive and is being used as a patsy. On the other hand, she was a partner at Jones Day, so presumably she's not naive.
Of course, we might be missing a third possibility (c) : maybe she doesn't give a rats ass for what the law says if nobody is going to hold her to it. Given that she served under Gonzales at Justice after she left Jones Day, and her former colleagues there would be responsible for going after her, it seems plausible. Naturally this doesn't preclude a, b or both.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Or (d) she has a job to do. When you're named to the FTC, it's because your expertise is valued. She should be involved in everything unless theres a strong enough reason not to.
There are two general duties involved in a Lawyer's duty to avoid conflicts.
The first is the duty of loyalty -- you generally can't be on "both sides" of a deal, because your duty to be loyal to one side will conflict with your duty to be loyal to the other. So, if one client wants to sue another, they both need to find another lawyer to do it.
The second is the duty of confidentiality -- you can't put yourself in a position where you could use confidential information about a former client. If, when you defended a (now) former client, you found out all sorts of salacious details, you can't litigate against them.
I don't think either of these are implicated here. She doesn't represent either DoubleClick or Google, nor has she. And, she doesn't have any knowledge about either, nor (apparently) does her husband.
Besides, you can't realistically have a rule against marriages between lawyers who work for firms on opposite sides of a transaction. Among large firms in any given city, there's an enormous number of cross-marriages. That rule would put them all out of business, and then how would two companies merge?