"[DOJ] Staff is irrelevant"

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

A new article in Wired about the Google/Yahoo deal has a number of interesting tidbits, not least on which is the following paragraph:

Tom Barnett, assistant attorney general for antitrust, took his seat at the table and called the meeting to order. The Yahoo lawyers kicked things off by describing their negotiations with DOJ staff; they had already suggested limiting the length of the deal and capping the amount of money in play. Barnett seemed unimpressed. "Staff," he proclaimed, "is irrelevant." He made the decisions around there.

As five lawyers involved with the case recount it, the rest of the meeting did not go much better.