Avigail Kifer

Avigail Kifer specializes in merger review, antitrust and competition, and technology and artificial intelligence (AI) matters. She has expertise in empirical industrial organization and quantitative marketing, and draws on academic and market research to develop robust, holistic analyses. Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) has named Dr. Kifer a Future Leader among economists in the global competition field. Women@ has recognized her as an “up-and-coming” woman professional in the competition space.

Dr. Kifer’s industry experience includes digital goods, financial services, healthcare, heavy manufacturing, information technology, internet advertising, life sciences, retail, and transportation. She has experience conducting statistical analysis of proprietary big data.

Merger review

Dr. Kifer has consulted on multiple merger investigations, both on behalf of regulatory agencies and merging parties. She has worked on transactions in several industries, notably technology, agriculture, insurance, manufacturing, and telecommunications. Her merger-related casework includes:

• Alaska Airlines/Hawaiian Airlines
• Meta/Kustomer
• In the Matter of Ball Corporation and Rexam PLC
• Big Tex Trailers/American Trailer Works
• T-Mobile/Sprint

Dr. Kifer submitted comments on the Draft Merger Guidelines released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in July 2023 and provided feedback to the Multilateral Pharmaceutical Merger Task Force in 2021. She also submitted comments on the DOJ and FTC’s Draft Vertical Merger Guidelines in January 2020.

Antitrust and competition

Dr. Kifer assesses class certification, liability, and damages claims arising in a variety of competition matters. She has addressed issues involving bundling and tying, horizontal price fixing, vertical exclusionary practices, and attempted monopolization. In healthcare, she has analyzed relevant markets and evaluated allegations of market power, competitive effects, and exclusionary conduct.

Dr. Kifer’s experience includes Sidibe et al. v. Sutter Health, a $1.2 billion antitrust class action trial, in which she supported an expert who analyzed market definition and market power issues. In Fresenius Kabi USA LLC v. Par Sterile Products LLC et al., a pharmaceutical antitrust matter, Dr. Kifer worked with two experts who evaluated allegations of market foreclosure.

Technology and big data

Dr. Kifer conducts statistical analyses and simulations on structured data, as well as content analyses of unstructured data. Dr. Kifer has assessed allegations related to self-preferencing, algorithmic collusion, conglomerate effects, and data theories of harm.

She serves as a vice chair of the Technology Committee in the Section of Antitrust Law of the American Bar Association (ABA).

Thought leadership

Dr. Kifer speaks, consults, and publishes on mergers and competition issues related to tech, big data, ecommerce, and healthcare, and has received multiple awards for her work. In 2025, she won a Concurrences Antitrust Writing Award for her article, “Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Antitrust: An Overview.” Concurrences also recognized her 2022 coauthored article, “Free Can Make Cents: How to Think About ‘Free’ in Competitive Markets,” with an Antitrust Writing Award.

Dr. Kifer has served as a guest lecturer in classes at Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School.