Jessica R. Watters

Jessica Watters represents clients in connection with antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions, litigations, conduct investigations and counseling. Ms. Watters has experience representing clients before the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, as well as in federal courts. She has worked for clients in a diverse range of industries, including in the technology, telecommunications, travel, energy and consumer products fields.

Some of Ms. Watters’ recent matters include representing:

• Activision Blizzard Inc. in its pending $75 billion acquisition by Microsoft Corporation;
• Norfolk Southern Railway Company in two multidistrict litigations brought by more than 110 individual plaintiffs alleging a price fixing conspiracy related to fuel surcharges;
• Microsoft in its $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications;
• Coherent in its $7.1 billion acquisition by II-VI, after representing Coherent in a three-party bidding war among Lumentum, MKS and II-VI for the acquisition of the company;
• HP Inc. in its $3.3 billion acquisition of Poly and its $425 million acquisition of the HyperX gaming peripherals business;
• Xilinx, Inc. in its $49 billion acquisition by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.;
• Sprint in its $59 billion merger with T-Mobile, including defending the merger at trial in a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general;
• Roper Technologies in the $365 million acquisition of EPSi from Allscripts by its affiliate Strata Decision Technology; and
• Anheuser-Busch Inbev in its $321 million acquisition of the remaining stake in Craft Brew Alliance that it did not already own and, separately, in a U.S. private antitrust lawsuit against its distribution practices in Ontario.

In addition, Ms. Watters has represented clients in investigations by competition authorities, including counseling one of the world’s largest technology companies in an FTC Section 6(b) investigation of non-reportable transactions that occurred over a decade-long period.

Ms. Watters maintains a robust pro bono practice. She frequently represents clients in incarceration reduction proceedings and also represented amici curiae on a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding criminal justice issues. Ms. Watters has been named to the National Black Lawyers’ 2022 Top 40 Under 40 list and served as a Young Lawyer Representative on the ABA’s Marketing Committee for the 2022–2023 term. Ms. Watters is actively involved in Skadden’s recruiting and attorney training programs and serves on the firm’s Associates Committee.