Christopher V. Lau

Christopher Lau consults on antitrust and competition matters, with a focus on mergers, merger investigations, and related litigation. Dr. Lau was retained as a testifying expert for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its investigation of a proposed merger between healthcare providers. In addition, he supported the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) expert on economic efficiencies and barriers to entry in its successful challenge of the JetBlue/Spirit merger.

Prior to joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Lau worked as a staff economist at the FTC. In that role, he served as lead economist on many merger investigations in a variety of industries, including food service distribution, hospitals, medical devices, and retail. He also supported experts and served as an expert witness on behalf of the FTC.

While at the FTC, Dr. Lau was the lead economist on the US Foods/SGA investigation and was a member of the FTC’s litigation team in the challenges of Staples/Office Depot (2015) and Otto Bock/Freedom Innovations. In the challenge of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare’s proposed acquisition of two Memphis-area hospitals, he supported the FTC’s testifying expert in a novel analysis of competitive effects. In a separate proposed hospital merger, Dr. Lau served as the FTC’s economic expert, providing qualitative and quantitative analyses that helped the FTC to issue a complaint, which resulted in the parties abandoning the merger.