The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division presented Bill Baer with the John Sherman Award for his “lifetime contributions to the substantive development of antitrust law and the preservation of economic liberty.” The John Sherman Award is the division’s highest honor. Baer received the award during a December 12 ceremony, which marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the award.

“Few living Americans have contributed more meaningfully or substantially to the life and enforcement mission of our federal antitrust agencies than Bill Baer,” said then assistant attorney general Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Baer is the only person to have served as the top antitrust enforcer at both U.S. antitrust agencies, first as the director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission from 1995 to 1999 and later as the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division from 2013 to 2016. Since January 2020, he has been a visiting fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.