Renata B. Hesse, former senior counsel to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, has been named to head up the Department of Justice's antitrust division as assistant attorney general.
That is the division that reviews communications mergers, and others, for antitrust issues. She replaces Bob Baer, who has been named acting associate attorney general.
Hesse has been the deputy assistant attorney general for criminal and civil operations for the antitrust division for the past three-plus years.
She was also acting assistant attorney general before Baer assumed the post she is now assuming from him.
She was a trail attorney in the division before that.
At the FCC, Hesse was responsible for overseeing the FCC's review of the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger, which was rejected.
Baer presided over DOJ's approval of the AT&T/DirecTV deal, and has been involved in the current Charter/TWC review.
He recused himself from the review of Comcast/TWC back in 2014, with Hesse taking over.
Baer is former head of the antitrust Practice Group at Arnold & Porter, which did some legal work for NBCU in the Comcast/NBCU transaction.
