On Monday, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a 277-page opinion finding Google liable for monopolizing the general search services and general search text ads markets....more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced yesterday increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR Act”), as amended. The FTC...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”), the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”), and the new proposed merger guidelines have all called out private equity transactions for particular scrutiny. The FTC just...more
8/22/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Consent Order ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Divestment ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Private Equity Firms ,
Section 8 ,
Settlement ,
The Clayton Act ,
Unfair Competition
On July 19, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) published Draft Merger Guidelines. The Draft Merger Guidelines, if adopted, would replace both the...more
The Federal Trade Commission, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, recently released a summary of the Agencies’ June 2022 joint workshop titled “The Future of Pharmaceuticals: Examining the...more
Congress passed the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022 (“Filing Fee Modernization Act”) on December 23, 2022 as part of a broader omnibus spending bill. It was signed into law by President Biden on December 29, 2022....more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) published today in the Federal Register increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR...more
As has been expected, on January 18, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced in a joint press conference an initiative to review and revise the...more
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
Lower jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR Act”), as amended, are scheduled to be published by the Federal Trade Commission...more
2/10/2021
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Filing Fees ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Size of Persons Test ,
Size of Transaction Test ,
Threshold Requirements
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
On Wednesday, an FTC Commissioner used the occasion of a routine report to Congress to send a warning shot to private equity firms, especially those rolling up health care providers. Commissioner Rohit Chopra, an advisor to...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
On Friday February 9, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division announced a settlement with Henry Ford Allegiance Health (“Allegiance”) of claims that Allegiance and certain other hospitals unlawfully...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 26, 2018, increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR...more
1/29/2018
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Filing Fees ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Reporting Requirements ,
The Clayton Act ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Voting Securities
A federal district court denied summary judgment motions brought by both sides in the government’s antitrust suit against a Michigan hospital alleging an agreement not to compete in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act....more
6/7/2017
/ Advertising ,
Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Attorney General ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Hospitals ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
ProMedica ,
Sherman Act ,
Summary Judgment
On March 30, 2017, in a closely watched case, a federal district court denied the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings filed by Carolinas Healthcare against the DOJ Antitrust Division and State of North Carolina’s Complaint...more
4/3/2017
/ Anti-Steering Rules ,
Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Contract Terms ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Health Insurance ,
Hospitals ,
Judgment on the Pleadings ,
Motion for Judgment ,
Pleadings ,
Restraint of Trade
The federal antitrust agencies have opened the New Year with vigorous enforcement of the Hart Scott Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (“HSR Act”) by imposing several fines totaling $1.5 million. On January 17, 2017,...more
For the first time in 26 years, the FTC and DOJ (the “Agencies”) have issued proposed updates to the Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property, last revised in 1995. The intervening quarter century...more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced this week that an activist investment manager has agreed to pay a record $11 million to settle allegations that it violated the requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust...more
7/14/2016
/ Baker Hughes ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Halliburton ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investment Funds ,
Investment-Only Exemption ,
Investors ,
Popular ,
Reporting Requirements
At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed this week in federal court a proposed settlement to charges that an investment fund violated the...more
8/27/2015
/ Board of Directors ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Shareholders ,
Third Point ,
Yahoo!
In recent years, antitrust criminal enforcement efforts have increased around the world. These efforts focus mainly on cartels — which the Supreme Court calls “the supreme evil of antitrust” — that conspire to fix prices, rig...more
From cassette tapes to CDs to Pandora and Spotify, innovations in the music field over the past two decades have drastically changed how people access music. Songwriters, however, are paid according to a system that has been...more
6/7/2014
/ Antitrust Division ,
ASCAP ,
BMI ,
Consent Decrees ,
Copyright ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Assets ,
Licensing Rights ,
Music Industry ,
Pandora ,
Popular ,
Public Performance Rights ,
Publishing Copyrights ,
Royalties ,
Sound Recording Copyrights
On January 31, 2013, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed its first lawsuit challenging a merger under newly sworn-in Assistant Attorney General, William J. Baer. Both the facts and circumstances...more