Steven L Holley

Practice Areas

Litigation; Antitrust; Criminal Antitrust; Supreme Court and Appellate

Career

Steven Holley is co-head of S&C’s Antitrust Group and a member of the Litigation Group. His practice focuses on antitrust counseling and litigation, but also includes bankruptcy, securities and tax litigation, as well as complex commercial disputes.

He has extensive experience advising clients on competition issues, including reviews of prospective mergers and acquisitions and other investigations conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission and state attorneys general. He has handled cases in state and federal courts and has substantial experience with arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Mr. Holley’s practice has addressed a wide variety of industries, including oil and gas exploration and production, extraction and refining of primary metals, distilled spirits, automotive components, microprocessors, pharmaceuticals, electricity generation, medical imaging equipment, newspaper publishing and computer software.

Starting in 1992, Mr. Holley represented Microsoft in the series of government enforcement actions in the United States and other countries, as well as private antitrust litigation brought by competitors and consumers of various Microsoft products. He was on the trial team in United States v. Microsoft and argued portions of the appeals to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He represented Microsoft in the acquisition of a large patent portfolio from Novell, and was recognized as “Litigator of the Week” by The AmLaw Litigation Daily after obtaining dismissal of Novell’s claims against Microsoft on a motion for judgment as a matter of law after an 8-week jury trial in Utah.

Mr. Holley represented Bayer in obtaining merger clearances for its $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto, a complex process involving more than 25 jurisdictions around the world. He had a central role in crafting an $8 billion divestiture of assets to BASF to satisfy concerns raised by various competition regulators. Mr. Holley then represented Bayer in an arbitration initiated by BASF in which it claimed to have overpaid by more than €2 billion for those asset packages. The ICC tribunal dismissed BASF’s contract and tort claims in their entirety following an evidentiary hearing in Frankfurt in November 2021 at which sixteen fact witnesses and four experts testified. The AmLaw Litigation Daily named Mr. Holley and the S&C team “Litigators of the Week” for this victory.

Personal

New York University School of Law, J.D., (1983); Indiana University, B.A., (1980); Judicial clerkship for The Honorable Jose A. Cabranes, United States District Court, District of Connecticut, (1983-1984).