Michael A. Finio

Michael Finio's legal career began in government as Chief Counsel to the Inspector General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where he spent two years supervising an investigative staff and conducting internal investigations of matters involving fraud, waste, and abuse in state governmental operations and contracting, reporting to the Inspector General, the Governor and the Governor's General Counsel. He then became a Deputy Attorney General in the Antitrust Section of the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, where Michael coordinated and conducted antitrust investigations and litigation with the U.S. Department of Justice, other states' Attorneys General and the National Association of Attorneys General. His antitrust work included criminal and civil matters and merger enforcement.

Michael left government in 1987 to enter private practice, where he continued to work on commercial and business matters involving commercial transactions and complex litigation, with a special focus on antitrust and trade regulation counseling and litigation. After 8 years with a Harrisburg, PA based firm, he joined Saul Ewing as a partner, continuing his commercial litigation practice while also being involved in antitrust counseling, litigation and filling through the role of the Business Department's liaison for the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Act filings. Michael has also represented clients in major antitrust and consumer protection investigations conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, the. U.S. Department of Justice and the Pennsylvania Attorney General. In these investigations, he has coordinated responses to civil investigative demands, attended formal and informal interrogations in industry competition investigations connected to pending merger approvals, negotiated consent decrees and handled litigation when compromise could not be reached.

Michael's litigation background is extensive in both state and federal courts in matters involving corporate governance and shareholder disputes, officer and director liability litigation, securities fraud, complex contract, and other commercial litigation, entity dissolution, and control disputes, commercial arbitration, franchise litigation, and non-compete litigation. Michael also handles a wide variety of complex commercial and other civil litigation, arbitration and mediation involving contracts, real estate, commercial relationships, corporate, and other entity control and governance disputes, antitrust and franchise matters. He has also prosecuted and defended challenges to state and federal statutes on constitutional grounds, principally arising under the Commerce Clause.

Michael has taught Antitrust & Trade Regulation at the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University.