Days after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached its first divestiture settlement of the new Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ or the Division) followed through on Assistant...more
6/17/2025
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Biden Administration ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Divestiture ,
Merger Remedies ,
Mergers ,
Popular ,
Settlement ,
Trump Administration
In a growing trend, states are requiring more premerger filings by enacting “baby-HSR” laws modeled after the federal Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act. These state-level statutes require parties to certain mergers and acquisitions...more
Breaking from longstanding tradition, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) both recently withdrew their attendance and speakership from the American Bar Association...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has imposed a record-breaking $5.6 million fine on XCL Resource Holdings, LLC (XCL), Verdun Oil Company II LLC (Verdun), and EP Energy LLC (EP) to settle allegations that they engaged in...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unanimously passed a landmark rulemaking that significantly alters reporting requirements under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. Though less...more
Information exchanges and integration planning are a vital component of the due diligence process when companies are considering acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, or any other business decision involving another party....more
Serial acquisitions and roll-up strategies are facing intense scrutiny as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division request public comment on how these types of...more
5/30/2024
/ Acquisitions ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Biden Administration ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Threshold Requirements
Wilson Sonsini provides extensive and cutting-edge legal services for innovators, technology pioneers, and disruptors. As part of our focus on emerging technologies, our attorneys are publishing a series on applying and...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a consent agreement requiring divestitures as a condition of Buckeye Partners, L.P.'s (Buckeye's) $435 million acquisition of 26 petroleum terminals from Magellan Midstream...more
The FTC's case against Facebook will be allowed to proceed now that the district court has held its Amended Complaint plausibly alleged violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act related to Facebook's acquisition of Instagram...more
1/19/2022
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Big Tech ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Instagram ,
Monopolization ,
Sherman Act ,
Social Media ,
WhatsApp
More than halfway through year one of the Biden administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are flexing their muscles and confirming the early consensus view that antitrust risk would be...more
In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched significant investigations into mergers between distributors, with the merging parties resolving the FTC’s concerns through consent, by abandoning the...more
The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for merging parties and enforcement agencies.1 In the U.S., it has caused both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to alter their...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued revised Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act jurisdictional thresholds for the upcoming year, the announcement of which was delayed due to the recent federal government shutdown. The FTC...more
2/21/2019
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Filing Fees ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Interlocking Directorate ,
Mergers ,
Size of Persons Test ,
Size of Transaction Test ,
The Clayton Act ,
Threshold Requirements
On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced its $108 billion proposed acquisition of Time Warner. After a year-plus investigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit to enjoin the merger, alleging that the transaction would...more
6/20/2018
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
AT&T ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
FCC ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Media ,
Multichannel Video Programming ,
Time Warner
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued guidance explaining how parties to a merger or acquisition can reduce antitrust risk when exchanging competitively sensitive information prior to closing. The exchange of...more
On September 26, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware challenging Parker-Hannifin Corporation's (Parker's) consummated acquisition of CLARCOR, Inc....more