Areas of Practice
- Antitrust & Competition
- Appellate & Supreme Court
- Commercial Litigation, Insolvency, & Creditors' Rights
- E-Commerce/Internet
- Intellectual Property
- International Trade & Investment
- Litigation
- Telecom, Internet & Media
- Telecommunications Law
Practice-Specific Experience
Education
- Yale Law School, J.D., 1977
- Yale University, B.A., summa cum laude, 1974
Judicial Clerkships
- Hon. Charles B. Renfrew, US District Court for the Northern District of California
Bar & Court Admissions
- District of Columbia
- Maryland
Anthony C. Epstein
Partner
1330 Connecticut Avenue, NWWashington DC 20036
TEL: 202.429.8065
FAX: 202. 261.7507
Anthony C. Epstein is a partner in the antitrust, telecommunications, litigation, and international groups at Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
AntitrustMr. Epstein has represented clients in a wide range of antitrust matters in both litigation and counseling contexts. He has extensive experience in handling merger reviews by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as state antitrust enforcement agencies. For example, he represented MCI in connection with its merger with Verizon and with its prior significant mergers, including Sprint, WorldCom, and British Telecommunications. He is familiar with the issues raised by multi-jurisdictional merger investigations involving the European Commission, other national competition authorities, and federal and state regulatory commissions.
Mr. Epstein has represented clients outside the merger context in civil and criminal cases and investigations by the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general. He has handled a number of private antitrust cases, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. His litigation and counseling matters have run the gamut from price fixing to monopolization to tying to vertical distribution arrangements to price discrimination to trade association activities.
Telecommunications
Mr. Epstein’s telecommunications practice includes competition matters before the Federal Communications Commission and state regulatory agencies. He has extensive experience in FCC and state proceedings concerning telecommunications mergers and joint ventures, including MCI-Verizon, WorldCom-Sprint, MCI-WorldCom, MCI-BT, Bell Atlantic-GTE, Bell Atlantic-NYNEX, SBC-Ameritech, SBC-Pacific, AT&T-MediaOne, AT&T-TCI, and AT&T-BT.
Mr. Epstein has participated in a number of FCC proceedings involving the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, interconnection, and participation of foreign carriers in the US market. Among the telecommunications cases that Mr. Epstein has argued in federal appellate courts are Qwest Communications Int’l v. FCC, 229 F.3d 1172 (D.C. Cir. 2000), Gulf Power Co. v. FCC, 208 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 2000), rev’d in part sub nom. National Cable & Telecom. Ass’n v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U.S. 327 (2002), Gulf Power Co. v. United States, 187 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 1999), and Bell Atlantic Telephone Cos. v. FCC, 131 F.3d 1044 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
Mr. Epstein has advised clients with respect to a variety of legal and policy issues concerning Internet services, including peering, distribution arrangements, and federal and state regulation of Internet access.
International
Mr. Epstein has represented clients in connection with proceedings before the International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, and in appeals from these agencies to the US Court of International Trade and binational dispute settlement panels established under NAFTA. He has been involved in several WTO cases, before both panels and the Appellate Body. Mr. Epstein was part of the Steptoe team that acted as lead counsel to the Canadian industry in the countervailing duty case against imports of softwood lumber from Canada, the most commercially significant trade cases ever filed under the US trade laws.
Background
Mr. Epstein maintains a general litigation practice at the trial and appellate levels, representing plaintiff and defendant corporations, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals. He has handled a variety of pro bono matters, ranging from military commissions for detainees at Guantanamo Bay to free speech on college campuses.
Mr. Epstein is active in various professional activities, including serving as the Chair of the Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law of the DC Court of Appeals. He was Vice Chair of the DC Bar's Rules of Professional Responsibility Review Committee, which developed a comprehensive overhaul of the DC legal ethics rules recently adopted by the DC Court of Appeals.
Noteworthy
- Listed in Washington, DC, Super Lawyers 2007 for Antitrust Litigation
- Steptoe Obtains Preemption Victory In Michigan Supreme Court
- Canadian Wheat and Lumber Have Two Further Victories
- Steptoe Advises Stratos on Xantic Acquisition
- DOJ Clears $8B Merger Between Steptoe Client MCI and Verizon
- Two International Trade Litigation Victories for Canada Clients
