Daniel G. Swanson is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, with offices in Los Angeles and Brussels. Mr. Swanson 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 also served as a Harvard Teaching Fellow.
Mr. Swanson has Co-Chaired Gibson Dunn's Antitrust Practice Group since 1996 and specializes in domestic and international antitrust and competition law, including counseling, internal investigations, and civil and criminal litigation. He has had an active commercial litigation and appellate practice for more than 25 years, dealing with antitrust issues in trial and appellate courts throughout the United States involving a wide array of industries and businesses. Mr. Swanson has also acted for commercial clients in a wide variety of non-antitrust matters and 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 also represents clients in connection with mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, including merger-clearance matters before the FTC, DOJ, and European Commission, and merger related civil litigation.
Mr. Swanson's name appears in the major publications that rank the world's leading antitrust lawyers. He has been described as a "'world-class' practitioner" and "a 'tough opponent' in civil and criminal litigation, alleged cartel matters and IP-related issues" in Chambers USA's AMERICA'S LEADING BUSINESS LAWYERS, an Antitrust "Litigation Star" in the Institutional Investor's BENCHMARK LITIGATION GUIDE, and has been 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's GUIDE TO LEADING COMPETITION ATTORNEYS and Practical Law PLC's WHICH LAWYER?
Mr. Swanson's practice has encompassed virtually every aspect of antitrust law. He has litigated claims of alleged monopolization and market dominance, predation, leveraging, bundling, standard setting, tying, exclusive dealing, horizontal and vertical price fixing, group boycott, refusal 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 Polyurethane Foam Antitrust Litigation, In re Rubber Chemicals Antitrust Litigation, In re Monochloroacetic Acid Antitrust Litigation, In re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, In re Automotive Refinishing Paint Litigation, In re Fresh and Process Potatoes Antitrust Litigation, In re Airline Ticket Commission Antitrust Litigation).
As a fully-qualified EU member state practitioner, as well as a U.S. lawyer, Mr. Swanson regularly handles international antitrust matters for international clients, and is a member of Gibson Dunn's International Management Committee. 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 is also an Officer of the Antitrust Committee of the International Bar Association, and has served on the Editorial Board of the IBA's publication COMPETITION LAW INTERNATIONAL. He is also a member of the Competition Section of the Law Society of England and Wales.
Mr. Swanson frequently represents clients in connection with antitrust grand jury investigations, plea and immunity negotiations, and amnesty applications (and related activities in the European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico), including more than a dozen amnesty/leniency matters and more than twenty international cartel investigations during the last decade. At the invitation of the Department of Justice, 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.
Mr. Swanson also regularly represents technology clients in antitrust matters involving patents, copyrights and other intellectual property and was asked to testify regarding his experience in the standard-setting arena in the 2002 DOJ-FTC Joint Hearings regarding Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy. 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 also has broad litigation and counseling experience in a wide variety of communications, media and entertainment fields. He has frequently represented motion picture and cable television industry clients in connection with various antitrust litigation, government investigation, regulatory and counseling matters. His prior experience also includes antitrust matters involving the music industry, broadcast television, telecommunications, broadband, social media, game publishing, radio broadcasting, newspaper publishing, and advertising media.
Mr. Swanson is a regular speaker on antitrust topics. He has contributed to leading antitrust journals and treatises (including ANTITRUST AND TRADE REGULATION, ANTITRUST LAW DEVELOPMENTS, 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 and the American Law and Economics Society.