Franco Castelli joined Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz’s Antitrust Department in 2005. He focuses on analysis of competition issues in U.S. and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. Mr. Castelli has represented clients before the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the European Commission, as well as other antitrust regulatory agencies. He has worked on transactions involving a wide variety of industries, most recently representing companies in the high-tech, financial information services, pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and chemical industries. Mr. Castelli has served as a guest lecturer on antitrust law at the Law School of the University of Milan, Italy.

Among other matters, Mr. Castelli has represented Smurfit-Kappa Group in its $20 billion merger with WestRock; Nasdaq in multiple transactions, including, most recently, its $10.5 billion acquisition of Adenza, as well as its acquisitions of Verafin and the International Securities Exchange; Marsh & McLennan in multiple acquisitions, including its pending $7.8 billion acquisition of McGriff Insurance Services, and its $6.4 billion acquisition of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group; S&P Global in its $44 billion acquisition of IHS Markit Ltd.; Celgene in its $80 billion acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Immunomedics in its $21 billion acquisition by Gilead; Actelion in its $30 billion sale to Johnson & Johnson and the spin-off of its drug discovery operations and early-stage clinical assets; Prysmian Group in its $4.5 billion acquisition of Encore Wire and its $3 billion acquisition of General Cable; FMC Corporation in its acquisition of DuPont’s Crop Protection business in exchange for FMC’s Health and Nutrition business; Expedia in its acquisition of Orbitz, which was named by Global Competition Review as Merger Control Matter of 2015 in the Americas, and in its acquisition of HomeAway.

Mr. Castelli received a J.D. from the University of Milan in 2001 and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 2005, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Mr. Castelli was selected as a “Future Leader” by Who’s Who Legal: Competition in 2017 and has been listed as a Rising Star in the 2015 and 2016 New York – Metro edition of Super Lawyers.

Mr. Castelli is a member of the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of the City of New York.