Richard Powers – Deputy Assistant Attorney General, US Department of Justice

From the battlefields of Iraq to prosecuting the landmark LIBOR manipulation conspiracy, the US’s top criminal antitrust prosecutor, has spent his entire career to date fighting important battles on behalf of Americans. During PaRR’s 2019 Spring Video Series, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers speaks to us about his role at the US Department of Justice.

From the battlefields of Iraq to prosecuting the landmark LIBOR manipulation conspiracy, the US’s top criminal antitrust prosecutor, has spent his entire career to date fighting important battles on behalf of Americans. During PaRR’s 2019 Spring Video Series, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers of the US Department of Justice noted the digital economy “provides a different platform for cartelists to engage in anticompetitive activity.” Powers described his first year in his current post as one of transition, as the agency saw new chiefs installed in four of its five regional bureaus and new faces in half of its assistant posts as well. “We’ve had a number of longer running cases come to a close, whether it was trial or appeal or in some instances closing cases,” said the former U.S. Army infantry officer. But as one door closes another one opens, he noted flagging the agency’s 91 grand jury investigations as the highest since 2010 and that in 2018, more probes were opened in any year since 2009. Incidentally, 2009 was also the year Powers graduated from University of Alabama’s School of Law.