Nathaniel E. Hipsman

Nathan Hipsman specializes in antitrust and competition matters, including horizontal and vertical merger reviews and conduct litigation. Dr. Hipsman’s expertise includes economic modeling, merger simulation, and complex data analysis, with experience spanning industries that include agriculture, entertainment, healthcare, life sciences, technology, and transportation. He leads teams to support clients and experts during all phases of merger review and litigation, including pre-deal risk analysis, pre-litigation investigation, second request, discovery, and trial.

Merger reviews

Dr. Hipsman works on behalf of merging parties and government agencies in high-profile merger reviews. His experience includes:

• Analyzing market definition, unilateral effects, and coordinated effects issues in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) successful challenges to JetBlue/Spirit and the Northeast Alliance between American and JetBlue
• Assessing competitive effects for the DOJ-cleared vertical merger between Cigna and Express Scripts
• Supporting the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) investigations of US Foods/Services Group of America, Aveanna/Maxim, and Lockheed Martin/Aerojet Rocketdyne, each of which ended in divestitures or abandonment
• Consulting for Six Flags during voluntary-access and second-request phases of DOJ’s inquiry into their merger with Cedar Fair
• Analyzing antitrust risks associated with an agriculture firm’s potential acquisitions

Antitrust litigation

Dr. Hipsman analyzes alleged anticompetitive conduct, including monopolization, tying, and price fixing. His work includes:

• Consulting on Epic v. Apple, which Global Competition Review recognized as its 2022 Matter of the Year
• Assessing class certification issues in a high-profile class action against a major digital platform operator
• Addressing market definition issues related to tying allegations in Sidibe et al. v. Sutter Health

Thought leadership

Dr. Hipsman speaks and writes on competition issues. In 2024, he moderated a panel titled “AI regulation and Impact on Innovation” at the NABE Tech Economics Conference. Additionally, he coauthored a public comment on digital markets in response to the Joint FTC-DOJ inquiry on merger enforcement. His coauthored article on evaluating innovation theories of harm in merger review appeared in Lexology’s Getting the Deal Through—Merger Control 2021.

Dr. Hipsman serves as a vice chair on the Pricing Conduct Committee and a Young Economist Representative on the Antitrust Law Journal, both part of the Section of Antitrust Law of the American Bar Association (ABA).