Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Sean Royall’s practice focuses on antitrust and consumer protection from both the litigation and government investigations perspectives.

Sean previously served at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as the Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, where he played a prominent role in shaping and overseeing the agency’s antitrust enforcement agenda. In that capacity, Sean supervised the FTC’s investigations of many mergers and acquisitions and served as lead trial counsel in a landmark patent-related monopolization suit the FTC brought against Rambus, Inc. Since returning to private practice in 2003, in addition to his decades of distinction as a nationally prominent antitrust attorney, Sean has become one of the leading lawyers in the country handling complex consumer protection matters involving marketing and advertising practices, privacy and data security, often in relation to investigations and enforcement actions brought by the FTC and state attorneys general.

Signaling the breadth and scope of his practice, Sean served as lead counsel for Facebook in connection with the FTC’s investigation of Facebook’s privacy-related practices and in 2018, representing AT&T, was a member of the trial team that successfully defended the company’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner against the Department of Justice’s lawsuit challenging that transaction.