To date, 2024 has not yet seen the type of mega-merger (Pfizer/Seagen) or level of agency enforcement (Sanofi/Maze or Amgen/Horizon) as 2023. But two notable investigations — one still active — show the Federal Trade...more
Antitrust issues have cut deeply into the corporate landscape, and this year is shaping up for more of the same. Generative artificial intelligence, merger enforcement, and trial risks stand out as three of the most important...more
On December 18, 2023, The Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice concluded a nearly two-year process of updating both the horizontal and vertical merger guidelines with the release of the...more
Our Antitrust Team examines finalized guidelines from the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission that set forth more aggressive standards for horizontal and vertical M&A transactions....more
As a capstone on the Biden administration’s aggressive 2023 antitrust enforcement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jointly issued revised Merger Guidelines before the holidays, replacing the...more
Last month, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued the 2023 Merger Guidelines, a draft of which was published in July. During TransPerfect Legal’s Antitrust Clearance & Merger...more
The Merger Guidelines lower the market concentration threshold for the presumption that a merger is illegal. Deals that place combined market shares above 30 percent with a significant increase in concentration are...more
It has been two years since President Biden signed a far-reaching, industry-spanning Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. The Executive Order outlined a “whole-of-government” approach to...more
Antitrust enforcers remained active across the globe, with the announcement by the FTC and DOJ of proposed guidelines that have an emphasis on tech mergers in the United States, and several investigations of major tech deals...more
Consistent with the Biden Administration’s whole-of-government approach to address perceived consolidation in a variety of industries, including in the healthcare industry, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S....more
The draft guidelines for applying US antitrust laws to merger investigations depart from prior guidance and seek to roll back decades of legal precedent on merger enforcement. Competitive effects analyses are out;...more
On July 19, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) (collectively, the Agencies) released the long-anticipated updated draft Merger Guidelines1 (the Guidelines) for a...more
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission issued new draft Merger Guidelines on July 19 that aim to significantly increase scrutiny of merger activity. The new Merger Guidelines would replace...more
Health care companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to create innovations, set prices, and compete with rivals. At the same time, federal and state antitrust enforcers are finding new ways to apply...more
UNITED STATES - Wilson Resigns as FTC Commissioner - On February 14, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) lone Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson, announced that she was resigning. Wilson explained her decision...more
2022 saw a major uptick in antitrust scrutiny and enforcement, primarily related to vertical transactions by large technology companies. Meta/Within, Microsoft/Activision, and Broadcom/VMware (among others) faced resistance...more
In 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order directing antitrust enforcers to make sure that health care would be an area of emphasis for antitrust enforcement, and in 2022 they did. Federal regulators brought several...more
Summary - ..The FTC and DOJ suffered twin setbacks in the healthcare space. In both UnitedHealth/Change and Illumina/Grail, the agencies’ reliance on more novel theories of harm failed to convince skeptical judges. ...more
Key Takeaways - The antitrust agencies have lost three litigated merger challenges in less than one month. The DOJ Antitrust Division lost challenges to UnitedHealth/Change and U.S. Sugar/Imperial Sugar while the FTC lost...more
The Biden Administration intends to reshape merger enforcement as part of its broader initiative to change U.S. antitrust law. In keeping with the Administration’s goals, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department...more
In July 2022, the FTC brought an enforcement action to enjoin Meta’s acquisition of virtual reality app maker Within. The FTC’s approach in that complaint could have implications for Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of...more
In March of this year the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) jointly announced a series of “listening forums” that would help gather real world input from...more
After a 2-year hiatus, health care transactional attorneys and related industry professionals descended upon Nashville, TN April 25th - 27th for the 2022 American Health Law Association (“AHLA”) Health Care Transactions...more
As part of their initiative to reevaluate both the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines (collectively, “Merger Guidelines”), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of...more
バイデン政権による競争法の執行強化により、過去の合併の見直しや、新たな報告義務の追 加、テクノロジー、ヘルスケア及び銀行分野など広い範囲の執行などの可能性が生じていま す。 ホワイトハウスは7月9日（金）、包括的な大統領令において独占禁止法上の優先項目を発表しました。 これはバイデン政権が特定した、過去40年間の独占禁止法運用の不備に対処するためのもので、7月12日...more