Michael Panzera currently serves as Senior Counsel for Int’l Consumer Protection & Privacy in the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. He covers bilateral relations and capacity building in Asia, Latin America and Africa on matters involving consumer protection (such as online scams, deceptive practices in e-commerce transactions / dark patterns, false advertising, pyramid schemes, environmental claims, right to repair, debt collection practices, etc.) as well as data privacy & security (such as telemarketing fraud, robocalls, children’s online protection, cross-border data transfers, collection and use of financial and credit data, etc.). He is also covers multilateral affairs in fora such as UNCTAD APEC, ASEAN, the Ibero-American Forum of Consumer Protection Agencies (FIAGC), the Ibero-American Data Protection (RIPD), as well as trade negotiations including consumer protection or privacy chapters. Lastly, he manages litigation assistance and information sharing for investigations or enforcement actions involving cross-border aspects.

Prior to joining the Federal Trade Commission, he served as senior trial counsel at the Department of Justice, Civil Division, representing the United States in international trade litigation in the Court of International Trade and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as contract disputes involving Federal agencies before the Court of Federal Claims. He also completed a two-year detail as a Mansfield Fellow, working in Tokyo at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, and the Tokyo High Court. As a Mansfield Fellow, he attended classes at the Legal Research and Training Institute for judges and prosecutors in Japan; he also studied Japanese Commercial Law as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Graduate School of Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo. In addition, he taught legal writing and oral advocacy as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School from 2004 until 2011.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, he worked as an interpreter/translator in Chile, Washington, D.C., and Taiwan. He received his Bachelors at Georgetown University, majoring in Mandarin Chinese with a concentration in Asian Development Economics. He received his J.D. from the University of Washington, and his LL.M. in International and Comparative Law at George Washington University School of Law, specializing in Asian Legal Systems. As part of his studies, he has also completed coursework at Oxford University in international human rights law and economic development, focusing on consumer protection issues. He obtained a Certificate in Comparative Consumer Protection Law in Latin America (Diplomatura en Derecho del Consumidor) from the Universidad Nacional del Sur through the Centro de Estudios en Derecho del Consumidor in Argentina. He has also completed Leadership Training at the FTC.

Besides Spanish and Chinese, he is fluent in French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, German and American Sign Language. He is currently learning Turkish, Swedish, Korean, Dutch, Danish and Japanese Sign Language. His hobbies include trapeze and performing stand-up comedy / storytelling.