Russell Steinthal has experience with the full range of the group’s practice, including litigation, merger-related work and corporate counseling. Russell routinely counsels clients on a wide variety of antitrust issues, ranging from cutting-edge issues at the interplay of antitrust and patent law to the intricacies of the Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger notification rules. In addition, he has been a lead antitrust attorney on numerous major transactions, including the $67 billion merger of AT&T and BellSouth, A&P’s $679 million acquisition of Pathmark, Ball Corporation’s $577 million acquisition of beverage can manufacturing plants from ABI/InBev, Bemis’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Alcan Packaging Food Americas and Google’s $700 million acquisition of ITA Software and its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.
Russell was also the lead associate on the Axinn team that spent more than a year intensively counseling MasterCard’s board of directors in the lead-up to its 2006 IPO. The IPO transformed MasterCard from a membership association of banks into a publicly-traded company and marked an important milestone in the credit card industry, which had faced a wave of antitrust challenges to its prior structure.
Russell is a member of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association. As a member of the latter’s Antitrust and Trade Regulation Committee, he has spoken on well-received panels on both SEP enforcement and the antitrust issues posed by patent assertion entities.
Experience
Mergers & Acquisitions
- Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility
- Google’s $700 million acquisition of ITA Software
- Bemis’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Alcan Packaging Food Americas
- Ball Corporation’s $577 million of beverage can manufacturing plants from ABI/InBev
- A&P’s $679 million acquisition of Pathmark
- The $57 billion merger of AT&T and BellSouth
- The 2004 sale of Candle Corporation to IBM
Investigations and Litigation
- Represented Google and Motorola Mobility in the FTC’s investigation of the latter’s standard-essential patent licensing
- Represented Matlin Patterson and Vantico in a private Section 7 challenge to a hostile takeover of Vantico, brought in the Southern District of New York, as well as in a related FTC investigation
- Represent Rapid Aid, a Canadian manufacturer of hot/cold therapy products, in a Section 2 case brought against it in the District of Maryland
Counseling
- Antitrust counsel to MasterCard’s Board of Directors in connection with MasterCard’s reorganization and $2.4 billion IPO
- Counsel to Stanley Black & Decker on Made-in-USA compliance issues
- Counsel to multiple clients on Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger notification issues
Honors
- Chambers USA (2015 – 2016)
- Super Lawyers, Rising Stars (2013 – 2017)
- Who’s Who Legal: Competition Future Leaders (2023)
News
- Who's Who Legal Recognizes Ten Axinn Attorneys
- Axinn Matter Named 2022 GCR Behavioural Matter of the Year – Americas
- New York State Bar Recognizes Eleven Axinn Attorneys
- Axinn Representing Silver Lake Partners LP in IMG/Learfield Merger
- GCR Nominates Axinn for Litigation of the Year, Deal of the Year and Dealmaker of the Year
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Thought Leadership
- Judge Rebuffs Antitrust Claims Against Canadian Maker of Therapy Products, Global Competition Review, October 1, 2014
- NCAA Ruling Clears Path For More Antitrust, Labor Brawls, Law360, August 11, 2014
- FTC to Launch Broad Study of "Patent Trolls", June 20, 2013
- Trends in FTC Merger Enforcement: Assessing the Most Recent Data, The Threshold, Spring 2009
Events
Education
- JD – Columbia Law School (2002) Honors: Stone Scholar; Public Service Fellow (2000); Semi-finalist, Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition (2001, 2002). Production Editor, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (2001-2002).
- BA, cum laude – Columbia College (1999) Honors: Departmental Honors in Computer Science.
Admissions
- New York
- US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- US District Court Southern District of New York
- US District Court Eastern District of New York
- US District Court Northern District of New York
- US District Court District of Columbia