Gopal Das Varma is an industrial organization economist with over 25 years of experience spanning government, economic consulting, and academia.
Dr. Das Varma consults to government agencies, private companies, and third parties involved in mergers and acquisitions and antitrust regulatory investigations. He has served as an economist in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Previously, Dr. Das Varma was a tenure-track professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Dr. Das Varma has been retained as an expert witness by the DOJ, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and private parties. He has submitted expert reports and has testified in depositions and at trial. His industry experience includes consumer products, industrial commodities and specialty equipment, paper, agriculture, airlines, broadband internet, media, software and hardware, wireless communications, and banking.
Mergers, antitrust, and competition
During his tenure in government and thereafter in private practice, Dr. Das Varma has worked on multiple high-profile mergers, including Bayer/Monsanto, American Airlines/US Airways, Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, and Flakeboard’s proposed acquisition of Sierra Pine.
While at the DOJ, Dr. Das Varma also worked on conduct investigations, including United Airlines’ proposed acquisition of Newark Airport slots from Delta Airlines, Most Favored Nation (MFN) clauses in Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s hospital contracts, and alleged vertical restraints in a smartphone producer’s carrier contracts.
Thought leadership
Dr. Das Varma’s research has appeared in peer-reviewed economics journals and professional publications, including the Journal of Industrial Economics, the RAND Journal of Economics, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, and the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Magazine. His writings on vertical mergers have been widely cited by scholars and antitrust practitioners. His coauthored article on entry deterrence, concentration, and merger policy, published in the Review of Industrial Organization, received the American Antitrust Institute’s Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship. Dr. Das Varma speaks frequently at academic seminars and antitrust conferences on industrial organization topics.
Teaching
As an assistant professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Dr. Das Varma taught graduate-level courses in industrial organization, competitive strategy, and game theory. While at the DOJ, he taught special topics at the DOJ’s ATR Institute.
Before joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Das Varma held leadership positions at an international economic consulting firm.