Founder

Maurice E. Stucke is the Douglas A. Blaze Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee.

With thirty years of experience handling a range of competition and privacy policy issues in private practice, as a senior policy advisor to the FTC during the Biden administration,  and as a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, he advises law firms, investment firms, consumer groups, governments, and multi-national corporations on competition and privacy issues. He has testified before, and provided expert reports for, multiple governments and inter-governmental agencies, including US Congress, European Commission, OECD, United Nations, and World Bank.

As a senior policy advisor to the FTC during the Biden administration, Professor Stucke

    • Coordinated with other jurisdictions’ competition authorities in drafting a report on the intersection of competition and privacy.
    • Coordinated with other federal agencies and the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers on competition issues.
    • With a wide latitude of responsibility, provided advice and analysis with the purpose of informing FTC policy, law enforcement activities, and consumer protection and antitrust missions.
    • Advised the Chair, senior Commission leaders, and other Executive agencies on legal and policy issues involving competition, privacy, and consumer protection, and ways to advance the FTC’s mission.
    • Brought expertise to the Commission and other competition agencies on the synergies and tensions between privacy and competition laws and policies.

At the Antitrust Division, he successfully challenged anticompetitive mergers and restraints in numerous industries and focused on policy issues involving antitrust and the media. As a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, he prosecuted a variety of felony and misdemeanor offenses. As an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, Professor Stucke assisted in defending Goldman Sachs, CS First Boston, and Microsoft in civil antitrust litigation. The Legal Aid Society presented him with two awards for his criminal appellate and defense work.

He publishes and speaks regularly on privacy, competition policy, and compliance in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. He authored and co-authored five books:

    • How Big-Tech Barons Smash Innovation―and How to Strike Back (HarperCollins 2022); 
    • Breaking Away: How to Regain Control Over Our Data, Privacy, and Autonomy (Oxford University Press 2022); 
    • Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants (HarperCollins 2020);
    • Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy (Harvard University Press 2016); and
    • Big Data and Competition Policy (Oxford University Press 2016).

Professor Stucke’s scholarship, which has been cited by the U.S. federal courts, Congress, competition agencies, and policymakers, is already impacting competition and privacy policies. He was invited by the World Bank, United Nations, OECD, and competition authorities from Australia, Canada, the European Commission, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States to discuss his research.

In 2009, Professor Stucke began serving as one of the United States’ non-governmental advisors to the International Competition Network, the only international body devoted exclusively to competition law enforcement and whose members represent national and multinational governmental competition authorities in over 100 jurisdictions.

Professor Stucke served on the boards of the Open Markets Institute, the Academic Society for Competition Law, the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, and the American Antitrust Institute, where he chaired a committee on the media industry that drafted a transition report for the incoming Obama administration.

Professor Stucke received a number of awards, including a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. In 2012, he was a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne.  In 2015 and 2017, he visited the University of Oxford, where he was an Academic Visitor at its Institute of European and Comparative Law, a Fellow at its Centre for Competition Law and Policy, and a Senior Associateship at Pembroke College. In 2017, he was nominated as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

  • Testified before the United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, Hearing on “Examining Competition and Consumer Rights in Housing Markets” (2023).
  • Commissioned by the World Bank to draft with Ariel Ezrachi two expert reports on competition policy in the digital platform economy (2022, 2019). 
  • Filed comments concerning the Verizon/TracFone merger before the Federal Communications Commission (2020-2021).
  • Requested by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law to submit a report on potential areas of antitrust reform (2020).
  • Filed comments and white paper opposing the Sprint/T-Mobile merger before the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission (2019).
  • Commissioned by the European Commission to draft with Ariel Ezrachi the independent expert report, Digitalisation and Its Impact on Innovation (2018).
  • Consultation with the United Nations on the antitrust and privacy implications of the digital platform economy (2018).  
  • Filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia in support of the appellant NCAA in NCAA v. O’Bannon, No. 15-1388 (S.Ct. filed June 14, 2016).
  • Drafted reports on the antitrust implications of the Bayer-Monsanto merger.
  • Filed an amicus brief on behalf of law and economics and antitrust scholars in support of the appellant NCAA in O’Bannon v. NCAA, Nos. 14-16601, 14-17068 (9th Cir. filed November 21, 2014).
  • Filed comments and white paper opposing Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable before the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission.
  • Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, Civ. Action No. 3-97-1249, 2008-2 Trade Cases & 76,317, 2008 WL 2811307 (M.D. Tenn. July 18, 2008) (drafted antitrust issues for successful summary judgment motion).
  • In re VisaCheck/MasterMoney Antitrust Litig., Master File No. CV-96-5238 (E.D.N.Y. 2006) (recovery by the United States, as a matter of equity–and the first time in the Antitrust Division’s history–for its share of damages in a private class action settlement).
  • United States v. Kentucky Real Estate Commission, Civil Action No. 3:05CV188-H (W.D. Ky. 2005) (challenging statewide ban on real estate brokers’ offering rebates or inducements).
  • United States v. Village Voice Media LLC & NT Media LLC, Civil Action No. 1:03CV0164, 2003 WL 22019516 (N.D. Oh. 2003) (led a joint task force with the Offices of the Attorney General for California and Ohio, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office that successfully prosecuted a market allocation agreement between the nation’s leading publishers of alternative newsweeklies and led to the publication of the newsweeklies under new owners).
  • United States v. Jerome, 38 F. App’x 887 (4th Cir. 2002) (co-lead on trial and appeal that affirmed conviction).
  • United States v. Redman, 18 F. App’x 168 (4th Cir. 2001) (handled appeal that affirmed conviction).
  • United States v. Smith, 22 F. App’x 162 (4th Cir. 2001) (opposed defendant’s motion to suppress, prosecuted the case, and handled the appeal that affirmed conviction).
  • United States v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., L’Oreal S.A. & Carson, Inc., 142 F. Supp. 2d 17 (D.D.C. 2000) (merger in hair care industry).
  • People v. Graham, 251 A.D.2d 426, 674 N.Y.S.2d 120 (N.Y. App. Div. 2 Dept. 1998) (obtained reversal of criminal conviction; first time the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department reversed in the interest of justice on improper rape trauma syndrome expert testimony).
  • United States v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., Civil Action No. 96-164 (D. Del. 1996) (merger in gypsum industry).
  • United States v. Kimberly-Clark Corp. & Scott Paper Co., Civil Action No. 3:95 CV 3055-P (N.D. Tx. 1995) (merger in tissue and baby wipes industry).
  • United States v. Interstate Bakeries Corp. & Continental Baking Co., Civil Action No. 95C 4194 (N.D. Ill. 1995) (merger in the white pan bread industry). 

Education

  • Georgetown University, J.D., 1994, magna cum laude
  • Georgetown University, A.B., 1987

Bar Admissions

  • Tennessee
  • District of Columbia (inactive)
  • New York