After nearly two years of combined efforts from the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the agencies jointly issued much-anticipated merger guidelines identifying the procedures...more
Parties to transactions that are reportable under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements (HSR) Act must observe a mandatory pre-close waiting period—30 days for most transactions—after reporting the transaction to the...more
On December 18, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) jointly issued a significantly revised version of the Merger Guidelines that describes the frameworks the enforcement agencies...more
The public comment period for the 2023 draft updates to the Merger Guidelines (“Draft Guidelines”) issued by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice has closed, and it is possible to review the 1,600...more
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan defended the agency’s merger enforcement record while responding to an inquiry from a member of Congress in a November 3, 2023, letter....more
From wholesale revisions of the merger guidelines to significant amendments to the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification forms, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have proposed...more
In late September, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). In the MOU, the two agencies expressed their “good-faith intentions” to work together...more
Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), recently delivered remarks at the annual Fordham Competition Law Institute’s International Antitrust Law and...more
The leadership of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice uniformly describe the mandate of their respective agencies as one of antitrust “enforcement” and not “regulation.”...more
On July 14, 2023, signaling a continuing shift in its position on antitrust issues, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) followed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and withdrew the Statements of Antitrust Enforcement Policy...more
In a quiet yet shocking announcement on February 3, 2023, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) withdrew three major antitrust policy statements (collectively, the “Statements”) that have served for...more
The Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Andrew Forman, recently spoke to the American Bar Association’s Mergers and Acquisitions Committee at the Business Law...more
On August 15, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released the FTC Policy Perspectives and Certificates of Public Advantage staff policy paper, along with a fact sheet....more
Both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) have authority to enforce Section 7 of the Clayton Act by investigating and challenging mergers where the effect of such...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are actively considering ways to “modernize” and strengthen their merger enforcement guidelines....more
The American Hospital Association (AHA), on behalf of its nearly 5,000 members and clinician partners, recently responded to the federal antitrust agencies’ request for comments to help inform the agencies’ efforts to...more
As part of their initiative to reevaluate both the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines (collectively, “Merger Guidelines”), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of...more
The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced last week that they are soliciting public comments on ways to “modernize federal merger guidelines” to assist the agencies in...more
Hospital transactions, including acquisitions and mergers, that meet Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) thresholds must, subject to any available exception, be reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of...more
We’re beginning to see how mergers and acquisitions in the hospital industry are being impacted by President Biden’s executive order promoting competition in the American economy. The Federal Trade Commission recently...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reimplemented a policy of requiring all merger enforcement orders to include the requirement that acquisitive firms obtain prior approval from the FTC before closing any future...more
On September 28, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a blog post announcing several changes to how the FTC will investigate mergers and acquisitions and how it will approach second-request negotiations. The blog...more
Chair Khan’s Priorities -
In a memo dated September 22, 2021, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), Lina Khan, described for the FTC Staff and fellow Commissioners what she described as her “vision and...more
On September 15, 2021, by a 3-2 vote, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) decided to withdraw the vertical merger guidelines that had been issued in 2020. In its statement supporting the withdrawal, the majority raised...more
A Surge of HSR Filings -
On August 3, 2021, the Acting Director of the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) authored a blog post discussing the tsunami of Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) filings that the...more