During its Q4 earnings report yesterday, Netflix announced a significant departure from past practice: it’s done borrowing money (for now, at least). After borrowing “over $16 billion to feed its titanic appetite for content”...more
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is pleased to present its 2016 Antitrust Year in Review. In this report, we summarize the most significant antitrust matters and developments of the past year. We begin with a look at the...more
Companies contemplating mergers should review the effect of the transaction on each customer type, application and product, not just on the broad customer base. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia...more
A federal court in Washington, D.C. issued an order blocking Staples' acquisition of Office Depot on the grounds that it would substantially lessen competition in the sale of consumable office supplies to national business...more
After more than a year-long battle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the proposed acquisition of Office Depot, Inc. (ODP) by Staples, Inc. (SPLS) was blocked by the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District...more
On May 17, 2016, one week after announcing his decision, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a public version of his opinion siding with the Federal Trade Commission in its...more
On May 10, Staples and Office Depot announced that they would be terminating their $6.3 billion merger in the wake of a federal judge’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the deal. This represents the second...more
On May 10, 2016, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released his highly anticipated decision in the matter of Staples’ acquisition of Office Depot, granting the Federal Trade...more
After last month’s bench trial, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has granted the FTC a preliminary injunction enjoining the merger between Staples and Office Depot. As a result, the companies have decided to end their efforts to...more
FTC Files No-AG Suit Against Pharmaceutical Companies - On March 30, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaintin the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against several drug...more
Yesterday, Staples closed its defense in the case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the Staples-Office Depot merger—without calling any witnesses. (We covered the first week of the trial here.) Judge...more
On Monday, Staples and the Federal Trade Commission began presenting arguments in the D.C. District Court on whether the FTC should be entitled to a preliminary injunction to halt a potential merger between Staples and Office...more
Merger activity in 2015 was at its highest level in years, and competition authorities in the U.S. and European Union continued to be very aggressive, challenging a number of high-profile deals in court and causing some...more
As we previously reported, the FTC recently filed suit to challenge Staples’ $6.3 billion bid for Office Depot. In response to the FTC’s challenge, Staples offered to divest up to $1.25 billion in commercial contracts to...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week challenged Staples’ $6.3 billion bid for Office Depot, claiming that the proposed merger would significantly reduce competition nationwide in the market for office supplies to...more
Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) sued to block Staples’ acquisition of Office Depot, the same day that General Electric withdrew from its agreement to sell its appliance unit to Electrolux due to a...more
December 7, 2015, was an eventful day for U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies. The Department of Justice achieved a high-profile win when General Electric Co. decided to abandon the proposed sale of its appliance unit to...more