Senior DOJ Consumer Protection Enforcer Rao to Join Mayer Brown

A senior official in the Justice Department’s consumer protection branch will join Mayer Brown in October, the firm said Thursday.

Arun Rao served as deputy assistant attorney general for the branch for more than three years before leaving in August. He’ll be a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington, DC, office where the Chicago-born firm has been building its corporate investigations team with government hires.

Rao will work in the firm’s investigations and white collar practice, starting Oct. 28. He said he’ll guide companies and executives in the pharmaceutical and consumer products sectors, two active areas for the consumer protection branch.

“With this most recent stint at the department, we had accomplished a lot of things I was looking to do and was ready for the next challenge,” Rao said in an interview. “I was drawn to the firm’s work on a number of high-profile matters and had a good sense of camaraderie with everyone I’d met during the process. And I’m really eager to take part in building out the practice in Washington DC.”

Rao oversaw a period of aggressive enforcement activity by the consumer protection branch, a civil organization that also brings criminal cases. He previously led investigative firm IGI as president and prosecuted cases in the US Attorney’s office in Maryland for a decade.

Arun Rao

Photo: Mayer Brown

As deputy assistant attorney general, Rao shepherded several notable cases, including negotiating a $59 million settlement with eBay over the sale of thousands of pill presses through the e-commerce site. He oversaw the prosecution of appliance manufacturer Gree USA for alleged failure to alert US authorities of defective dehumidifiers, the first criminal enforcement action under the Consumer Product Safety Act, Rao said.

Mayer Brown is seeking to grow its DC office into the “premiere investigations and regulatory shop among DC firms,” said Jason Linder, co-chair of its global investigations and white collar defense practice.

The firm has looked to position itself as a leading advocate for financial companies in regulatory battles. It faces competition from other outside firms, like DC-rooted players Covington & Burling and WilmerHale, all vying for government talent and client business.

“We’ve had clients clamoring for us to offer advice in the area where Arun has seen invigoration in the consumer protection branch,” Linder said.

The firm has made partners out of several exiting government attorneys this year. Earlier this month, Mayer Brown announced the hire of Sonali Patel, former assistant chief of the department’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit. It has also added Jennifer Zepralka, former chief of the Security and Exchange Commission’s office of small business policy, and Kimberly Hamm, former chief counsel to former SEC chairman Jay Clayton and US Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.

DOJ representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment on Rao and Patel’s moves to private practice.

At a time of “intense polarization” in politics, Rao said consumer protection enforcement garners bipartisan support and will likely continue regardless of party control in January. “I’m optimistic that there will be continued enforcement, civilly and criminally, in the next administration regardless of party,” Rao said.