Leading Antitrust Expert Vanessa Yanhua Zhang Joins Compass Lexecon

Compass Lexecon is pleased to announce that leading antitrust expert, Dr. Vanessa Yanhua Zhang, has joined the firm as an Executive Vice President in our New York office. Dr. Zhang joins us from The Brattle Group where she led their Asia antitrust & competition practice. She specializes in applying economic analysis to competition, industrial organization, and intellectual property issues across various industries in Asia, the US, and the EU. Dr. Zhang’s expertise will add great value to our growing Asia antitrust & competition practice.  

Dr. Zhang’s expertise has been applied to a wide array of matters involving allegations of monopolization, foreclosure practices, vertical restraints, cartels, merger analysis, damages, FRAND, and intellectual property. These matters extend across numerous industries including transportation, chemical, e-commerce, payment card, banking, pharmaceutical, high-tech, electricity, telecommunication, and consumer products. 

In particular, Dr. Zhang has extensive experience in China, where she has testified as an expert witness and submitted expert reports before the Supreme People’s Court, Provincial Higher Courts, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation. MOFCOM and SAMR often retain Dr. Zhang on global mergers, including Agrium/PotashCorp and SONY/SenseScene. 

In addition to her extensive consulting work, Dr. Zhang is a Senior Research Fellow at the Renmin University of China Market and Regulation Law Center, where she teaches regulation and antitrust economics. She has also provided antitrust economic training to the Chinese regulatory agencies and judges and assisted agencies with economic analysis in their merger reviews. 

Dr. Zhang has edited several books in both English and Chinese, written numerous articles and contributed to books on China’s merger control regime and Anti-Monopoly Law, and authored extensively for publications including the Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Review of Industrial Organization, and the Antitrust Chronicle (in addition to serving on its advisory board).

Joining Dr. Zhang will be a China-based team of consultants and experts who are Chinese nationals and fluent in English – the majority hold PhDs in economics from the US or the EU. The experts include two highly regarded academic advisors:  Dr. Zonglai Kou, Professor of Economics and Deputy Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University; and Dr. Hongjun Zhong, Professor of Strategy and Economics and the Director of the Faculty Development Center at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics’ College of Business.

Dr. Zhang commented, “I am delighted to join Compass Lexecon and help expand its fast-growing antitrust and competition business in Asia. I look forward to teaming up with the firm’s highly regarded experts in the US, the EU, and Asia to provide world-class service to its global clients.”

Senior Managing Director and Global Executive Committee Member Jorge Padilla added, “I am thrilled to welcome Vanessa Zhang to Compass Lexecon with the knowledge that she will contribute her energy, passion, and wisdom to better serve our clients in Asia and elsewhere. I met her years ago and have worked with her in the past, so I know what she is capable of. I am glad to have the opportunity to work with her again.”