In a closely followed case that parallels the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 1990s Microsoft antitrust victory, a D.C. district court has ruled that Google is a monopolist and has maintained its monopoly positions through anticompetitive means—exclusive...
Court action related to a recently abandoned hospital merger deal sought by Novant Health/Lake Norman and Davis Hospitals demonstrates the current FTC’s hostility to concentration-increasing mergers and the “failing firm” defense as spelled out...
On April 23, 2024, the FTC, by a 3-2 vote, issued its controversial, long-awaited final rule banning nearly all non-competes that would have significant impact: nearly one in five Americans are subject to a non-compete. But the ban’s effect will likely be...
With Republican commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson joining the FTC in March, the Commission has GOP input for the first time in nearly a year. On April 22, the now-full-strength FTC voted unanimously to challenge a merger between “accessible...
Antitrust attorneys advising on transactions with global reach often need to determine where to file merger control notifications around the world. Practical Guidance’s Multi-jurisdictional Merger Control (Jurisdiction) and Multi-jurisdictional Merger Control...
FTC Chair Lina Khan told a conference of the American Medical Association on February 14, 2024, that the healthcare market is under the microscope in the Commission’s push for greater competition across the economy. Recent efforts by the FTC in this space...
On January 16, 2024, a federal district court in Massachusetts prevented JetBlue from acquiring Spirit Airlines. The court focused on JetBlue’s roots as a maverick, low-cost carrier which provides innovation and downward pressure on prices and how the proposed...
A Missouri jury recently found that defendants National Association of Realtors (NAR) and a group of real estate brokerages were guilty of conspiring to inflate real estate broker commissions in violation of the antitrust laws and awarded damages of $1.785 billion...
Under the current administration, the FTC and DOJ are reluctant to settle deals with competition concerns and skeptical of whether divestitures remedy the alleged competition lost as a result of a transaction. In this enforcement environment, it behooves parties...
Summary: Developing a Strong Antitrust Foundation Cost-Effective Risk Assessment Leveraging Agency Precedent for Smaller Clients Building Relationships with Specialists Avoiding Small Firm Overconfidence The complex world of healthcare antitrust...
Summary: Mergers and Acquisitions Anticompetitive Conduct Insurance and ACO Antitrust Navigating Antitrust Agencies and Regulations Role of Antitrust Counsel in Healthcare Researching Antitrust Issues in Healthcare Over the past few decades...
On August 16, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought an enforcement action resolving its concerns in a transaction between private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners and natural gas producer EQT Corporation. Most notably, the consent order alleged that...
Apart from several trackers on enforcement actions brought by the DOJ and FTC, we now have a tracker that focuses on the other, non-case related functions of the FTC and DOJ. Those other functions include, among other things, providing guidance to market participants...
On July 19, 2023, the DOJ and FTC issued proposed Merger Guidelines which will replace the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines. The proposed Merger Guidelines are consistent with the Biden-era approach to stricter enforcement...
The FTC has proposed changes that would substantially expand the scope of disclosure obligations imposed by the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) notification form and would effect the first major transformation of the form since the premerger notification program's...