Lee Loevinger, 91; D.C. Lawyer Known for 1963 Antitrust Case

Lee Loevinger, 91, a Washington lawyer who in the 1960s was chief of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a member of the Federal Communications Commission, died April 26 of heart disease at a hospital in the nation’s capital.

As assistant attorney general, he was part of “the exclusive triumvirate” of antitrust enforcement, according to a Newsweek report at the time. The other two members were Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy and then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Byron White, who became a Supreme Court justice.

Loevinger successfully argued the 1963 landmark antitrust case United States vs. Philadelphia National Bank before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, which produced the court’s first ruling on the applicability of antitrust laws to commercial banks, focused on the merger of two of the three largest banks in Philadelphia.

The banks maintained that the merger would help them compete with bigger New York financial institutions. Using a section of the Clayton Antitrust Act, Loevinger convinced the high court that the merger would harm other banking institutions in Philadelphia.

President Kennedy later named Loevinger to the FCC to complete the term of Newton Minow, who had declared television “a vast wasteland.”

At the FCC, Loevinger helped push a reluctant AT&T; to establish an emergency phone number that became 911.

A native of St. Paul, Minn., Loevinger earned his bachelor’s and law degrees at the University of Minnesota. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he joined a Minnesota law firm. He was later appointed an associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court.