William Kolasky
Partner at HHR
William J. Kolasky is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP. His work focuses on antitrust litigation, merger review, government investigations, and counseling on the competition implications of business arrangements.
Kolasky represents clients in antitrust litigation in courts across the United States and in criminal and civil investigations before the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He has secured antitrust clearance for more than 100 mergers and acquisitions and has coordinated merger reviews in multiple jurisdictions around the world. He also advises clients on the antitrust aspects of joint ventures, distribution agreements, and other complex business arrangements.
Earlier in his career, Kolasky served as deputy assistant U.S. attorney general in the DOJ Antitrust Division. In that role, he helped develop the International Competition Network, a global organization of competition authorities that promotes cooperation and convergence in antitrust enforcement.
Before joining Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Kolasky was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, the precursor to WilmerHale.
He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Bailey Aldrich of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later served as assistant to the general counsel at the U.S. Department of the Army.
Kolasky has also taught antitrust law at American University’s Washington College of Law and has been active for many years in the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law, including serving on the editorial board of Antitrust Magazine.
He received Global Competition Review’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to antitrust law in private practice, government service, and scholarship.
Kolasky earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he served as a note editor of the Harvard Law Review. He holds a bachelor’s in economics, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
