NCAA vs. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma: A Win for Antitrust Law and College Football Fans
Under the old guard of the prior administration, private equity was repeatedly under fire for alleged “flip and strip” tactics that were supposedly “at odds with competition.” Now, with new enforcers in place, a different...more
After years of litigating its attempt to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently dropped its in-house challenge following the Ninth Circuit’s decision affirming...more
In a recent speech, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bill Rinner of the DOJ Antitrust Division outlined the Division’s approach to merger enforcement in the Trump administration under the leadership of Assistant Attorney...more
On March 7, 2025, the FTC filed a complaint in federal court seeking to block GTCR BC Holdings, LLC, a Chicago private equity firm, from acquiring Surmodics, Inc. The FTC alleges that Surmodics is the leading provider of a...more
On December 13, 2024, Judge Robert E. Payne of the Eastern District of Virginia, in a long-running private action that had previously found a consummated merger to be unlawful, overruled defendant’s objections to the required...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 10, 2025, increased reporting thresholds for transactions. Annually, the FTC reviews and adjusts the premerger notification reporting thresholds for reporting...more
As expected, the mandatory notification thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act), will be increasing. The Size of Transaction threshold will jump from $119.5 million,...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has increased the dollar jurisdictional thresholds necessary to trigger the reporting requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (“HSR Act”), and...more
There were a number of significant developments in antitrust law in 2024, including some major wins for the government in merger enforcement, increased focus on competition concerns related to algorithmic pricing, and...more
The incoming Trump administration suggests a potential return to more traditional levels of antitrust enforcement for energy industry mergers and a departure from novel theories of harm seen under current Federal Trade...more
New U.S. merger control filing forms to take effect in February 2025 - Following publication in the Federal Register, the new Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) premerger notification forms will become effective on February 10, 2025....more
This newsletter is a summary of the antitrust developments we think are most interesting to your business. Roxane Hicheri (counsel based in Paris) and Mark Steenson (counsel based in London) are our editors this month. They...more
On May 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division announced a Request for Information (“RFI”) seeking information from the public to “identify serial acquisitions...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced the launch of “an easily accessible online portal for the public to report health care...more
Oil and Gas Mergers and Acquistions: A $100 Billion Shift - As happens periodically, consolidation mania has once again seized the oilpatch. There have been multiple oil and gas acquisitions totaling over $100 billion by...more
On August 16, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced an agreement with natural gas producer EQT Corporation (EQT) and private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners (Quantum) to resolve concerns stemming from alleged...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been active in challenging hospital combinations. In June 2022, the FTC filed complaints to block two hospital transactions. Within weeks of the FTC's actions, both transactions were...more
Antitrust enforcement has been heating up over the last few years in several areas – notably in healthcare and labor. As the antitrust climate intensifies and spreads, private equity (PE) firms are starting to feel the heat,...more
This newsletter is a summary of the antitrust developments we think are most interesting to your business. Lisa Emanuel, counsel based in Sydney, is our editor this month (learn more about Lisa in our Q&A feature at the end...more
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last week that directors at several technology companies have resigned as a consequence of the agency’s renewed focus on overlapping board membership between...more
On October 19, 2022, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice announced that seven directors resigned from five different US public company boards of directors following DOJ concerns that their roles violated...more
In a September 9, 2022 decision, Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell dismissed a complaint filed by the FTC alleging that the $7.1 billion acquisition of multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test maker Grail, Inc. by...more
On February 24, 2022, New York AG Letitia James and Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, along with the U.S. DOJ, filed an antitrust lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed...more
The FTC filed an administrative complaint against U.S. chip manufacturer Nvidia Corp. and U.K. chip design provider Arm Ltd. and its parent company (collectively “Arm”) to stop Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm over...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) reached a settlement with generic drug companies ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“ANI”) and Novitium Pharma LLC (“Novitium”), as well as Novitium’s parent company, to resolve allegations that...more