Covington & Burling LLP | Biographies

George Chester is a Partner practicing in the areas of general antitrust counseling; mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures; IP licensing transactions; government investigations; and trade associations. In his 30-year antitrust practice, he has handled innumerable mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and intellectual property agreements ranging from large global mergers and joint ventures to transactions of all shapes and sizes throughout the healthcare, manufacturing, mining, financial, communications, pharmaceutical, and high-tech industries.

Contested merger matters on which he has been counsel in recent years include the successful defense, after a three-week trial, of merger-to-monopoly claims brought by the Department of Justice, and a European client's hostile tender offer on the London Stock Exchange for a major foreign competitor with which it also competed directly in the US - an unusual transaction (in antitrust terms) by which a company divested pursuant to an earlier DOJ merger decree returned to acquire the former divesting parent. He also successfully represented the acquiring party in the largest horizontal acquisition of acute care hospital operations within a single service area and has assisted clients in complex horizontal deals to appropriately restructure their transactions in advance of governmental filings to avoid or reduce anticipated antitrust complications.

Representative Matters

Several thousand M&A, joint venture and licensing transactions over a 30-year antitrust career, including some of the largest mergers in U.S. history.
Extensive experience advising numerous trade associations and professional organizations.