For the sixth consecutive year, Dechert is the contributing editor of the International Comparative Legal Guide - Private Equity. The guide, now in its tenth edition, is one of the most comprehensive comparative guides to...more
9/10/2024
/ Competition ,
Debt Financing ,
France ,
Interest Rates ,
Leveraged Buyout ,
Presidential Elections ,
Price Inflation ,
Private Equity ,
Regulatory Standards ,
UK ,
Valuation
The U.S. agencies concluded 11 significant merger investigations in the first half of 2024—just one shy of the total concluded in all of 2023. Activity has picked up considerably since last year but is still below the...more
8/7/2024
/ Abandonment ,
Consent Decrees ,
EU ,
EUMR ,
European Commission ,
European Court of Justice (ECJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investigations ,
Mergers ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Settlement ,
The Clayton Act
District court finds minority investors in companies accused of antitrust violations are not liable solely by virtue of holding a minority ownership stake.
To obtain injunctive relief, the FTC must allege specific facts...more
The U.S. agencies announced the conclusion of six significant merger investigations in Q1 2024, double the number seen last quarter. This marks the end of six quarters of three or fewer significant investigations. In line...more
Only 12 significant merger investigations concluded in 2023—a drop of 40 percent from just last year and by far the lowest in DAMITT history. This observed and verifiable drop sharply contrasts with recent reports that...more
Tracking the economy’s continued growth and the resulting increase in GNP, the HSR filing thresholds increased by about 7.3 percent.
The new minimum size-of-transaction threshold increased from US$111.4 million to...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
United States -
All significant U.S. merger investigations concluded in either a complaint or an abandoned transaction. Four of the last five quarters have now concluded without any consent agreements, demonstrating the...more
Dechert’s antitrust group submitted comments today to U.S. antitrust agencies on their proposed top-to-bottom overhaul of premerger antitrust filings made under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act. The Federal Trade Commission...more
All significant U.S. merger investigations concluded in either a complaint or an abandoned transaction. Three of four quarters over the last year have now concluded without any consent agreements, demonstrating the agencies’...more
On July 19, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (collectively, the agencies) issued their long-awaited draft Merger Guidelines. The draft Merger Guidelines, once finalized, will...more
The recent proposal would require significantly more information to be provided up front to the U.S. antitrust agencies.
The new rules will likely take effect in Q4 2023 or Q1 2024....more
7/6/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Certifications ,
Competition ,
Data Collection ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
NAICS ,
Premerger Notifications
In the past year, environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) practices have faced heightened scrutiny in the United States from state attorneys general, state and federal legislators, other government officials, and...more
6/21/2023
/ 401k ,
Administrative Procedure Act ,
Asset Management ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Duty of Loyalty ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Investment ,
Investors ,
Mismanagement ,
Popular ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Retirement Plan Providers ,
Risk Management
Sixty percent of significant investigations concluded with a complaint or abandoned transaction in 2022. This shatters last year’s record of 37 percent. The 10 complaints filed in 2022 are also a DAMITT record. Those are...more
Following a robust growth in GNP, the HSR filings thresholds increased by about 10.3 percent.
The new minimum size-of-transaction threshold increased from US$101.0 million to US$111.4 million....more
The newly enacted Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act significantly changes filing fees for HSR filings.
The changes are expected to take effect in 2023; the exact date is still to be announced....more
Key Facts -
United States -
• Only three significant merger investigations concluded in Q3 2022. All three investigations ended with a complaint or an abandoned transaction. For the first time in more than a decade,...more
In both our DAMITT 2021 Report and our Q1 2022 Report, we warned that parties to transactions subject to significant merger investigations were more likely to see the FTC or DOJ sue to block their deal or push them to abandon...more
7/26/2022
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Corporate Sales Transactions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Statistics ,
EU ,
European Merger Control Regulation ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Government Investigations ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Merger Controls
In the U.S., “significant” merger investigations include Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act reportable transactions for which the result of the investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or the Antitrust Division of the...more
4/21/2022
/ Antitrust Investigations ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Corporate Sales Transactions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
EU ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Merger Agreements ,
Merger Controls ,
Settlement Agreements
The number of significant U.S. merger investigations concluded in the first year of the Biden administration was in line with the average observed during the Trump administration....more
On January 21, 2022, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that the dollar-based thresholds applicable to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) premerger notification program will be raised about 9.7% percent from the...more
On December 22, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they had entered into settlements with Clarence L. Werner and Biglari Holdings Inc. (Biglari)...more
12/28/2021
/ Acquisition Agreements ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Failure-to-File ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Filing Requirements ,
Fines ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investment ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Voting Securities
Key Facts - United States - Dechert has yet to see an increase in concluded significant U.S. merger investigations despite a surge in merger filings that began in the fall of 2020. Instead, we continue to see a decrease in...more
Key facts - United States - Despite Big Tech headlines, the percentage of significant U.S. merger investigations involving technology companies was below the average for the last decade. By contrast, merger investigations in...more
DAMITT has observed an across-the-board increase in the average duration of significant EU Merger investigations: Phase I remedy cases resolved in Q1 2021 averaged 10.5 months; while Phase II investigations averaged 17.3...more