The Boiling Points collection features real-world documents that government antitrust agencies used against merging companies. Dechert’s antitrust/competition practice curated the collection from an exhaustive review of publicly available court and antitrust agency records — it is the first and only comprehensive collection of actual documents that have caused deals unwanted attention from government authorities.

The tool is intended to help counsel and business teams develop pro-competitive, fact-based deal themes and to spot hot content that may need to be analyzed or explained. Inclusion in the collection does not necessarily mean that the document supported the government’s case to block a merger. Additional context, explanation, or documents often provide more probative evidence and can rebut use of the isolated statements in documents.

However, inclusion does highlight the types of statements that are likely to be drawn into the spotlight in merger investigations and potentially create sideshows that distract from other substantive issues.