On January 23, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
According to Commissioner Phillips, the FTC has sent out over 50 “close at your own peril” letters. These are letters to parties who have reported reportable transactions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act...more
On January 24, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
Last week. FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson delivered a speech with a title that made clear she intended to speak her mind: The Neo-Brandeisian Revolution: Unforced Errors and the Dimunition of the FTC....more
The FTC has issued several statements recently that have confused the market and bar as to what its merger enforcement posture will be. Among others, the FTC has suspended early terminations; has sent letters to parties after...more
The Decision 1-800-Contacts is one of the largest sellers of contacts online. One of the principal ways consumers shop for contacts is through key word searches. In the past, certain 1-800-Contacts competitors purchased...more
The FTC and DOJ announced today that they would be suspending the “discretionary” early termination process because of the “transition to a new administration” and the “unprecedented volume” of HSR filings for the start of a...more
On February 2, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
On Friday, January 22, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission settled charges with three ticket brokers for violating the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, which was passed in 2015. These are the first case brought under...more
On March 24, 2020, the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department and the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission announced that they are adopting expedited processes for reviewing potential collaborations or...more
Please be advised that the FTC and DOJ are suspending hard copy HSR filings effective today, and will be implementing an FTP site for electronic-only HSR filings shortly. No filings at all will be accepted today. The FTC...more
On January 28, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
On January 10, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice released a draft of their long-anticipated vertical merger guidelines and withdrew their 1984 Vertical Merger Guidelines. Vertical mergers received a...more
Elizabeth Warren is calling for aggressive enforcement of the antitrust laws. The House Judiciary is opening hearings on big tech, and the Justice Department and FTC have allocated amongst themselves responsibility for...more
Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren thinks Big Tech is too big and wants it—and, in particular, Amazon, Facebook and Google—broken up and their past mergers and acquisitions unwound. And the FTC recently announced it was...more
In what may be the first case ever, a party to an FTC administrative merger challenge has filed suit in U.S. District Court asking the court to halt the administrative proceeding and order the FTC to pursue a preliminary...more
On January 26, 2018, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
After months of speculation among the consumer protection and antitrust bars, Trump announced today his intention to nominate former Director of the Bureau of Competition and current Paul Weiss partner Joseph Simons as...more
On July 6, 2017, QVC announced its intent to acquire the remaining 62 percent of Home Shopping Network it doesn’t already own. More so than DraftKings or Walgreens, this transaction will demonstrate whether Trump’s election...more
Federal Trade Commission Acting Chairman Ohlhausen and Commissioner McSweeny recently gave two very different speeches on algorithmic pricing. Commissioner McSweeny’s speech seemed to express concern that algorithms would...more
On January 19, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission announced revised notification thresholds pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended. The HSR Act requires parties to file notification...more
On December 14, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Better Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016. The BOTS Act prohibits circumventing a website’s security measures to acquire event tickets. It also restricts the reselling...more
The Premerger Notification Office of the Federal Trade Commission announced on November 28, 2016, that they were revoking previous informal advice regarding the scope of Items 4(c) and 4(d) of the HSR Form. In the past, the...more
Fortiline LLC distributes ductile iron pipe. It competes with the manufacturer which somewhat regularly undercuts its distributor in the market. Fortiline on several occasions asked the manufacturer not to do so. Fortiline...more
The FTC sued 1800Contacts for entering into a series of agreements with competitors that limited the competitors’ ability to bid on certain trademarked terms as search terms in online search term auctions.
Search engines...more