Facebook hires DOJ lawyer Kate Patchen amid Trump antitrust concerns

Donald Trump and Mark
Zuckerberg.
Getty/Business
Insider

• Facebook looks like it is preparing for war with Donald
  Trump.
• The firm has hired Kate Patchen, the chief of the
  Department of Justice’s antitrust division in San
  Francisco.
• It follows Trump saying that his administration is
  “looking at” antitrust proceedings against Google, Amazon, and
  Facebook.
• Facebook is also hiring a lead counsel on competition
  matters in Washington.

Facebook has hired one of the top antitrust lawyers in Silicon
Valley, in a sign that the company could be preparing for war
with Donald Trump’s administration.

Kate Patchen, the chief of the Department of Justice’s antitrust
division in San Francisco, has joined Facebook as director and
associate general counsel of litigation.

Patchen updated her LinkedIn
profile earlier this month with the news, which was first spotted by the Financial
Times. Business Insider has contacted Patchen and Facebook
for comment.

LinkedIn

Patchen’s hire comes in the same month in which US President
Trump said his administration was “looking at” antitrust
proceedings against tech giants Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

“You look at the European Union, they fined I guess it was
Google, billions of dollars, and frankly I don’t like that
they’re doing that because that’s an American company,” Trump
told Axios. “I don’t think it’s good that they’re doing that. But
if anybody does that, it should be us doing it.”

Read more: Facebook staff have voiced a ‘huge
upswell’ of support for Sheryl Sandberg after she reportedly
feared for her job

Patchen has worked at the Department of Justice for 14 years,
during which time she has prosecuted a number of price-fixing
cartel cases in the computer memory chip industry.

Her appointment is not the only sign that Facebook is beefing up
its legal bench amid the threat of hostilities from the White
House.

Facebook is also looking to hire a lead counsel on competition
matters in Washington. In an ad on LinkedIn, it said
the successful candidate will: “Manage investigations and
inquiries related to antitrust matters and help develop the
company’s legal position and strategy on competition matters
throughout the world.”