In a statement posted on FTC website, Chairman Deborah Platt
Majoras said she won’t recuse herself from the commission which is reviewing
Google-Double Click transaction.
Majoras’ statement was issued after two privacy groups said
FTC Chairman should recuse herself because DoubleClick had hired her old law
firm, Jones Day, to represent them before the European Commission. John
Majoras, her husband, remains at Jones Day.
On April 14, Google announced a definitive agreement to
acquire DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based
private equity firm Hellman & Friedman along with JMI Equity and management.
One week later Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC),
a consumer privacy group, filled a complaint to Federal Trade Commission to
investigate and block Google's proposed $3.1 billion deal to buy Double Click,
unless the companies will improve consumer privacy protections. Electronic
Privacy Information Center argued that the merger would violate agreed limits
on how much data advertisers collect on consumers. "Google's proposed
acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information
about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the
world," the complaint by the privacy activist groups argues. The Center
for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group joined EPIC's
complaint.
The $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition deal made by Google
has also raised serious complaints from its Internet and media rivals.
Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, AT&T, Time Warner and some other companies strongly
suggest that anti-trust regulators should place under scrutiny Google’s deal.
On December 12 EPIC and the Center for Digital Democracy
filled a motion with the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, seeking the
disqualification of FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras.
According to the motion, Chairman Majoras recused herself in
the FTC’s review of the Proctor & Gamble acquisition of Gillette “because
her former law firm, Jones Day, represented P&G
before the Commission, and Majoras’ husband remains an
active partner with the firm.”
In her response to the motion, Deborah Majoras said she won’t
recuse herself and her husband was is longer an equity partner in the firm.
“After reviewing the relevant facts and consulting with the
FTC’s Designated Agency Ethics Official, Deputy General Counsel Christian S.
White, the General Counsel, my fellow Commissioners, and members of my staff, I
have determined not to recuse myself from this matter because the relevant laws
and rules, as detailed below, neither require nor support recusal”, the FTC’s
statement reads.
“Because my husband is not an equity partner in Jones Day,
any decisions that I may make in any case in which Jones Day represents a party
cannot be said to directly and predictably affect my husband’s interest in
Jones Day. Hence, I do not have a financial conflict in this matter” Majoras
added.
Another commissioner, William Kovacic, said that his wife
also was a Jones Day lawyer who was not working on the Google-DoubleClick deal.
“As of January 1, 2006, my wife, Kathryn Fenton, converted
to a nonequity status at the law firm of Jones Day and became a fixed
participation partner in that firm. As a fixed participation partner, her
compensation will not be increased or affected by changes in the firm’s income.
Further, all benefits received by Ms. Fenton from Jones Day are the same as
those earned by other similarly situated non-equity partners in the firm.”
The other three commissioners, Pamela Jones Harbour, Jon
Leibowitz and J. Thomas Rosch all agreed. “We agree with the analyses in
Chairman Majoras's and Commissioner Kovacic’s responses, and see no legal
grounds that would disqualify them from participating in the investigation of
the Google-DoubleClick transaction,” they wrote in a joint statement.
In Europe, antitrust regulators said last month that they
were conducting their own investigation and would make a decision by April 2,
2008.
