As a capstone on the Biden administration’s aggressive 2023 antitrust enforcement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jointly issued revised Merger Guidelines before the holidays, replacing the...more
On June 1, 2023, the European Commission (EC) adopted revised Horizontal Guidelines (HGs) and two updated block exemption regulations (BERs) on research and development (R&D) and “specialisation” agreements. These materials...more
The Proposed Merger Guidelines represent the DOJ's and the FTC's aggressive scrutiny of mergers. As one of the most important reflections of policy the Antitrust Agencies use to analyze transactions, the Proposed...more
Summary - ..The FTC and DOJ suffered twin setbacks in the healthcare space. In both UnitedHealth/Change and Illumina/Grail, the agencies’ reliance on more novel theories of harm failed to convince skeptical judges. ...more
On September 15, 2022, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) sued to block ASSA ABLOY AB’s (“ASSA ABLOY”) proposed $4.3 billion acquisition of the Hardware and Home Improvement division of Spectrum Brands Holdings Inc....more
Following guidance from the White House to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to modernize their merger guidelines, the FTC and DOJ announced on January 18,...more
On 6 May 2021, the European Commission ("Commission") published a staff working document ("SWD") on its evaluation of the horizontal block exemption regulations on research & development and specialisation agreements...more
The fact that a merger might be anticompetitive is not a reason to prohibit a transaction if all of the elements of the “failing firm defense” are met, as described below. In fact, the antitrust agencies have long recognized...more
In a recent speech, FTC Bureau of Competition Director Deborah Feinstein discussed the FTC’s approach to analyzing claims by merging parties that a merger will benefit consumers by creating efficiencies. Feinstein began...more