Following President Trump’s Executive Order on Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers, the FTC—led by Chairman Andrew Ferguson—launched a public inquiry this week into “how federal regulations can harm competition in...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ), along with 38 state attorneys general, has backed away from part of its proposed remedy in the Google antitrust case that would have required Google to divest its AI investments and forgo...more
After the FTC issued a replacement of the 2016 Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals on January 16, 2025, Commissioner – now Chair – Andrew N. Ferguson, joined by Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, punctuated his...more
1/31/2025
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Banking Sector ,
Competition ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Merger Controls ,
Mergers ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Unfair Competition
The breakthrough of the Chinese company DeepSeek’s AI model, which rivals leading US AI models but costs a fraction to develop, changes the equation for the Trump administration and calls into question its initial inclination...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Friday increased jurisdictional thresholds for (1) notifications under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the HSR Act), (2) the HSR Act filing fee schedule,...more
1/15/2025
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Filing Fees ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Pre-Merger Filing Requirements ,
The Clayton Act ,
Threshold Requirements
On October 24, the Biden administration issued the first-ever National Security Memorandum (NSM) on AI. Pursuant to the Biden administration’s Executive Order on AI, the NSM outlines concrete actions for federal agencies to...more
On October 3 and 4, the competition authorities of the G7, including the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, participated in a summit on AI competition challenges.
The...more
10/14/2024
/ Antitrust Division ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Competition ,
Copyright ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
EU ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
G7 ,
Innovation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Transparency ,
UK
On July 23, 2024, the leading competition enforcers in the US, EU, and UK released a Joint Statement on Competition in Generative AI Foundation Models and AI products.
The statement outlines risks to competition that are...more
8/5/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Competition ,
DOJ Strike Force ,
Enforcement ,
EU ,
European Commission ,
Fair Dealing Exception ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Machine Learning ,
UK ,
UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
On March 13, 2024, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace hosted Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) Chair Lina Khan for a panel entitled “The Future of American Innovation.” The panel discussion, which broadly concerned...more
1. Following up on a December 2023 hearing on algorithmic price-fixing and self-preferencing, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced a...more
On December 18, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) published the long-awaited final 2023 Merger Guidelines. The 2023 Merger Guidelines are informed...more
12/29/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Biden Administration ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Horizontal Mergers ,
Mergers ,
Private Equity ,
Request For Information ,
The Clayton Act ,
Transparency ,
Vertical Mergers
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced Monday that it had reversed its in-house Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) Initial Decision dismissing a complaint brought by FTC staff against Illumina, Inc.’s acquisition of...more
4/6/2023
/ Acquisition Agreements ,
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Divestment ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Life Sciences ,
Merger Controls ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Section 7 ,
The Clayton Act ,
Vertical Mergers
The Federal Trade Commission on Friday announced a Request for Information regarding “franchise agreements and franchisor business practices, including how franchisors may exert control over franchisees and their workers.”...more
As a part of the new initiative to revise the antitrust merger guidelines, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) announced on March 17, 2022 that the agencies will host...more
On December 6 and 7, 2021, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) hosted a virtual workshop to discuss competition issues in labor markets and plans to execute President...more
12/10/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Competition ,
Compliance ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Mergers ,
OSHA ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Wages
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) just announced that they will host a virtual workshop on December 6 and 7, 2021, to discuss the agencies’ efforts to promote...more
Last week was momentous for the Federal Trade Commission. First, the campaign use antitrust to reign in “Big Tech” faced a setback as the United States District Court for District of Columbia dismissed the FTC’s suit against...more
7/13/2021
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Big Tech ,
Competition ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Google ,
Instagram ,
Monopolization ,
Sherman Act ,
Social Media ,
WhatsApp
On July 9th, President Biden issued a broad-based Executive Order “to promote competition in the American economy.” In the White House’s own words...more
On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, an international coalition of competition enforcement agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, Offices of State Attorneys General,...more
Earlier this week, Stone Canyon Industry Holdings LLC (“Stone Canyon”) and its portfolio company SCIH Salt Holdings Inc. (“SCIH”) reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to resolve its...more
Last week, Geisinger Health (“Geisinger”) and Evangelical Community Hospital (“Evangelical”) reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), resolving the DOJ’s ongoing litigation challenging...more
On February 18, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the divestiture order issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in a private merger challenge brought by...more
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recent winning streak in its ongoing challenges of hospital and physician mergers has, at least for now, ended in a Philadelphia U.S. district court. After six days of evidentiary...more
In the process of green-lighting a vertical merger with a firewall remedy, the current Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) exposed a significant partisan divergence in the commissioners’ approach to vertical...more
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) announced a proposed settlement in its anti-steering case against Atrium Health (formerly known as Carolinas HealthCare System) (“Atrium”). US v. The...more