Over the past year, U.S. antitrust officials attempted to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology, novel academic theories, and a global pandemic while enforcing federal merger control laws that predate many structures common to today’s transactions. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued a trend of active enforcement in areas such as vertical mergers and labour markets, while signalling an intent to become more active in spaces that are currently, and mostly, relegated to academic discussion rather than enforcement policy. This includes the ongoing debate over the potential anticompetitive effects of concentration of shareholdings in the hands of large institutional investors and the question of how to analyse and regulate “killer acquisitions.”

Baker Botts lawyers Joe Ostoyich, Jeffrey Oliver and Rachel Rasp recently contributed to the 2020 Chambers Merger Control guide to share insights into trends and developments across the landscape. Topics include:

• Vertical Merger Guidelines
• State-Level Antitrust Enforcement
• Common Ownership/Interlocking Directorates
• The Rise of Enforcement
• Treatment of Ancillary Non-Compete/Non-Solicitation Agreements
• Merger Control in Healthcare
• Enforcement in a COVID-19 World
• Prompting change
• Killer Acquisitions
• FTC Special Orders

To read the full write up, please click here.

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