Fierce Competition Podcast | Private Equity Under the Antitrust Microscope
The Latest on Antitrust Compliance
What the final days of the Biden administration portend for private equity enforcement in Trump 2.0 - During the final days of the Biden administration, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the...more
A suit brought by state attorneys general accusing Google of overseeing a broad scheme of anticompetitive conduct in digital display advertising markets will continue following a Jan. 28, 2025, ruling from the Eastern...more
President-elect Trump will act quickly to replace Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and roll back certain Biden-era antitrust initiatives. The new administration is likely to bring a more favorable merger review...more
There has been a spate of legislation and lawsuits targeting the use of software that gives visibility to competitors’ prices. This allows firms to adjust their prices, either undercutting the competition or setting a de...more
Following a nine-week bench trial starting in September 2023 and closing arguments in May 2024, District of Columbia district court judge Amit Mehta ruled on August 5, 2024, that Google illegally maintained its monopoly in...more
This week’s decision in United States v. Google represents a significant victory for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and various state attorneys general, which successfully argued that Google has exercised...more
United States Attorney General Merrick Garland, giving remarks about the lawsuit, highlighted public criticism over Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s “exorbitant fees and technological failures” and stated that this lawsuit is “what...more
On May 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division announced a Request for Information (“RFI”) seeking information from the public to “identify serial acquisitions...more
For the third time in as many months, the U.S. federal antitrust enforcement authorities -- the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice -- have filed a statement of interest in an...more
On March 5, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) jointly issued a Request for Information on Consolidation in Health Care...more
Antitrust is in the news. Old cartoons showing octopus-monopolist tentacles destroying Washington are no longer just for American history textbooks. Lina Khan—who rose to prominence with an article attacking the Chicago...more
Nearly six years after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) put human resource executives and their companies on notice that no-poach and wage-fixing agreements would be subject to...more
United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and United States Representative Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) on March 16, 2022 introduced the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act (the “Act”) to ban what they’ve called “the...more
The meat processing sector has been in the crosshairs of the federal government over that last several years due to increased consumer prices for meat products and complaints from farmers and ranchers. These complaints have...more
Corporate acquirers accustomed to government inertia in antitrust reform are navigating a sea change in Washington, according to Craig Seebald, a Washington, D.C.-based Partner and leader in the global Antitrust Group at...more
2021 has been a busy year for antitrust legislation. On February 4, 2021, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and four other senators introduced the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Act of 2021 (“Klobuchar Bill”)....more
On 22 December 2020, on a divided vote, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or the Commission) issued a Commentary on Vertical Merger Enforcement (FTC Commentary) to provide “greater transparency to the public regarding its...more
Tim Wu, the bard of big tech, has written multiple books about the rise and coming fall of technology monopolies, oligopolies, and empires. In The Master Switch, Wu tells the story of how, in the 19th Century, the existing...more
The Justice Department’s landmark monopolization case against Google is interesting. The case represents yet another attempt to apply well-established antitrust principles in a rapidly-changing, dynamic technology market....more
On April 13, 2020, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition released a joint statement and press release regarding “competition in labor markets” and potential...more
Last month, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a law repealing a provision of the Colorado Antitrust Act that prohibited challenging a merger under state law where the federal antitrust agencies did not also challenge the...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have extended the deadline for public comments on the draft vertical merger guidelines (the Guidelines), which were published jointly by the agencies on 10...more
On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released joint draft Vertical Merger Guidelines (“Guidelines”) for public comment. This much anticipated...more
On January 10, 2020 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released draft guidelines outlining the agencies' "analytical techniques, practices, and enforcement policy" for...more
On Friday, 10 January 2020 the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (collectively, the agencies) announced the publication of draft vertical merger guidelines that describe how the agencies currently...more