Mark A. Israel

Mark Israel is President of Compass Lexecon and a member of the firm’s three-person Global Executive Committee, which manages the firm worldwide. Previously, he was a Senior Managing Director and Head of Compass Lexecon’s North American Antitrust Practice. Prior to joining Compass Lexecon, Dr. Israel served as an Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford in 2001.

Dr. Israel has substantial testifying and consulting experience involving the application of economic tools—including both econometric methods and economic theory—to antitrust cases including mergers, joint ventures, litigation matters, regulatory proceedings, and arbitrations.  He has served as an economic expert for government agencies and private parties in over 100 matters in the United States, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Asia; provided live testimony more than 50 times; and submitted well over 100 expert reports, declarations, and affidavits.  He has been qualified by courts to provide expert testimony more than 20 times; his opinions have been favorably relied upon by courts in multiple countries, and none of his opinions have ever been excluded. Dr. Israel was named Global Competition Review’s Economist of the Year for 2023, and a Who’s Who Legal Global Elite Thought Leader in both 2022 and 2023

Dr. Israel’s work focuses on a wide range of industries, with special expertise in wireline and wireless telecommunications, media, advertising, sports, airlines, railroads, and other transportation services, along with extensive work in other industries including, software and other high technology markets, financial markets, healthcare, biotech, distribution of food and other products, energy markets, consumer retail, and many others. His work in these industries covers merger review, analysis of single- and multi-firm conduct, economic merits and liability analysis, class certification, and damages.

As one recent example, Dr. Israel provided expert testimony in support of the C$26 billion merger between Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, with Canada’s Competition Tribunal describing Dr. Israel’s testimony as “knowledgeable, candid, and forthcoming” as part of its opinion upholding the merger.

Dr. Israel is also a recognized thought leader in competition economics and applied econometrics.  He has spoken on these topics to academic, business, and government audiences around the world, and he has written numerous academic articles on a variety of topics related to many aspects of competition economics and applied econometrics.  His research has been published in leading, peer-reviewed scholarly and applied journals including, among others, The American Economics Review, The Rand Journal of Economics, The Review of Industrial Organization, The Journal of Competition Law and Economics, and The Review of Network Economics.  Among his publications is the chapter on Econometrics and Regression Analysis in the Third Edition of the American Bar Association’s treatise on Proving Antitrust Damages (co-authored with two other Compass Lexecon economists).