Sky Blog
Boards are regularly called upon to guide management teams in answering the age-old strategic question: build or buy? But the already complex business calculus has become increasingly complicated in the past several years because of stepped up scrutiny of mergers …
Since President Biden issued his July 2021 Executive Order on Competition, the antitrust agencies have made broad policy statements promising more aggressive enforcement and have initiated a number of high-profile enforcement actions. Rather than establishing a record of success, the …
“Common Ownership” arises when shareholders hold substantial stakes in different firms that impose externalities on each other, and it challenges the assumption that firms act to maximize their own profits. While firm decisions are ordinarily made by its board of …
Is big business ungovernable? Some of today’s calls to break up and intensely regulate big business do not hinge on harms to consumers as consumers, but rather on the claim that giant corporations with market power treat legal requirements as …
On June 13, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) five commissioners aired their ideological differences over the regulation of private equity-backed consolidation and the tools used to police such deals via a consent agreement settling the FTC’s challenge to a …
From April 5 through April 8, 2022, the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association held its annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. A prominent theme throughout the week was the role of the antitrust laws in the lives of …
Merger control authorities in many jurisdictions are taking a more aggressive and expansive approach when reviewing industry-consolidating transactions, and some are using the merger clearance process to advance policy objectives involving areas far beyond those of traditional competition. In addition, …
On February 17th, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an initiative to protect supply chains from anticompetitive behavior amid global disruptions and persistent inflation. The initiative is yet another example of the Biden Administration’s aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement since …
At a recent Enforcers Summit, leaders of various U.S. and international antitrust enforcement agencies set forth their enforcement priorities. The new heads of the U.S. antitrust agencies emphasized that the agencies are primed to litigate more cases, challenge more mergers, …
On Jan. 18, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division announced a joint public inquiry related to the federal merger guidelines, with the goal of “strengthening enforcement against illegal mergers.” Members of the …
Antitrust is back. The Chicago School relegated antitrust policy to obscurity during the latter half of the 20th century, but a new cohort of antimonopoly scholars has recently rekindled concerns about industrial consolidation and corporate “bigness.” This antitrust revival …
The Biden administration has demonstrated a clear pro-enforcement approach to antitrust, implementing numerous directives and changes, driven in part by concerns about the power of Big Tech, and by progressives who want antitrust enforcement to further their social goals.
These …
A growing literature highlights the important effect of economic and political policies on mergers and acquisitions (M&A). M&A often involves major issues of corporate investment and resource allocation, and so inefficient interference in the M&A market can have significant and …
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has announced revised monetary thresholds for the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976 (“HSR Act”). The revised thresholds were published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2022 and will be effective on February 23, …
On January 18, 2022, Lena Kahn, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), held a joint press conference announcing the launch of a …
In a January 24 speech, Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, set forth his views on how the DOJ should approach merger remedies and signaled that the DOJ may be more …
How common ownership affects competition is a source of acute disagreement among scholars and policymakers, with some who believe common ownership depresses competition seeking antitrust law reforms that would significantly constrain how investment funds operate. Neglected in this vigorous debate, …
Antitrust regulators around the world, including in the UK, have recently proposed changes to merger review policies and enforcement strategies that have implications for how acquisitions of start-ups are investigated and evaluated. These changes will likely lead to heightened scrutiny—and …
On November 30, 2021, the UK’s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), found that the completed acquisition by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.) of GIPHY, Inc. resulted in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC…
Antitrust plaintiffs typically rely on circumstantial evidence when pursuing price-fixing claims, because price-fixing conspirators usually conceal their collusion through code names, secret meetings, cover stories, and falsified documents. Antitrust law uses a two-step process for proving price-fixing agreements through circumstantial …