Summarizes the latest Federal Trade Commission's annual adjustments to filing fees for premerger review of sizable transactions and reporting thresholds for review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1974.
Highlights important proposed changes to antitrust Merger Guidelines. Includes evaluation of essential steps merger and acquisition parties will need to take if changes are approved.
Highlights important proposed changes to the Premerger Notification Form required by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Includes evaluation of essential steps transaction parties will need to take if changes are approved.
Summarizes the need for standards to facilitate best practices for internal investigations and presents an overview of the new ISO TS 37008 standard.
Explains changes made to appropriate venues for challenging Illinois administrative rules, executive orders, and constitutionality of state laws. Includes pros and cons of those changes.
Synopsis of the Department of Justice’s recent updates to its corporate voluntary self-disclosure policies, including a new clawback policy to impose costs of corporate crime on responsible executives.
Describes FTC’s annual changes to premerger filing fees and reporting thresholds
On January 31, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its annual adjustments to the reporting thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (HSR Act). The newly-revised thresholds represent modest increases over last year’s thresholds. They are published in the Federal Register and will become effective 30 days after the date of their publication. The revised thresholds will remain in effect until the FTC’s next annual adjustment in the first quarter of 2021.
HSR Act Basics
The HSR Act requires parties to mergers ...
Chances are you first become aware that your company is a target or subject of a criminal antitrust investigation when you receive a grand jury subpoena, or worse, when federal agents show up with a search warrant asking questions. This is serious business, given the consequences. Among the many questions experienced antitrust counsel will ask you early on is whether you have an antitrust compliance program, and if so, how it is set up and operates. In recent years, the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) assigned no weight to the existence of a ...
This is not about restrictions on how you cook your eggs or hunt game out of season.
But read on if you are an employer and want to know about a serious and growing antitrust risk, heightened by federal and state antitrust enforcement as well as private litigation. Agreements to refrain from soliciting another company’s employees (“no poaching” agreements) face increased scrutiny — with potential criminal consequences. In close alignment, there is a spate of new “wage-fixing” cases, a variant of price fixing.
It all started with three cases brought by antitrust ...
February 20, 2019 - On February 15, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published increased reporting thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (HSR Act). The new thresholds represent an approximate 6.6 percent increase over last year’s thresholds. They are expected to be published in the Federal Register during the week of February 18, 2019, and they will become effective 30 days after the date of their publication. This year’s revised thresholds were delayed due to the government shutdown in January. The revised thresholds will ...
On January 29, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published increased reporting thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (HSR Act). The new thresholds increase last year’s thresholds by approximately 4%. The revised thresholds are effective for all transactions closing on or after February 28, 2018. The revised thresholds will remain in effect until the FTC’s next annual adjustment, which should be released during the first quarter of 2019.
The HSR Act requires parties to mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and certain ...
Annually, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is required to revise the basic thresholds used to determine reportability of transactions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (HSR Act), based on the change in our gross national product. Once again the thresholds have increased. The changes were effective February 27, 2017.
Most importantly, the minimum “size of transaction” threshold is increased to $80.8 million from $78.2 million last year. Accordingly, an acquisition, merger, or joint venture where at least $80.8 million of assets ...
This year, France was treated to a quintessentially French scandal: a yogurt cartel. On March 12, 2015, the Autorité de la Concurrence, France’s antitrust authority, announced that it was fining eleven companies more than €192 million ($214 million). Together, these eleven companies represented close to 90% of French yogurt production.
From 2006 to 2012, representatives from companies like Yoplait, Novandie, Senagral (Senoble Group), and Lactalis Nestlé, met in private to coordinate price increases on the private-label yogurt, cheese, cream, and dairy-based dessert ...
We’ve all heard the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff—the one in which three goats need to cross a bridge in order to reach the lush meadow on the other side. But a hungry troll lived under the bridge, waiting to eat all those who dared to pass. The troll wasn’t very smart, though. After being tricked by three goats (you can find the full story here), the bridge troll was never heard from again.
Unfortunately for many US companies, that’s not the case with the modern-day patent troll. Although patent trolls may be smarter than the bridge troll of the children’s story, they are still ...
On January 17, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a report revealing an increase in “pay-for-delay” or “reverse-payment” patent settlements between brand-name pharmaceutical companies and their generic counterparts
These controversial settlements typically involve a brand-name drug manufacturer who is granted a drug patent which gives the company the exclusive right to sell the drug for up to 20 years, depending on the type of drug. The patent is then challenged by a generic rival. Rather than risk losing their patent monopoly on account of a judgment ...
If you are involved in the auto parts industry there is good reason to be concerned. Why? Read on.
On October 31, 2012 The Department of Justice-Antitrust Division announced the ninth guilty plea for price-fixing and bid-rigging in a continuing investigation of industry practices. The DOJ investigation reveals a long-standing conspiracy from approximately 2003 to 2010, when the first prosecutions were announced. Thus far, nine companies and eleven executives have pled guilty in prosecutions brought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, in Detroit. A ...
Two oil and gas companies accused of illegally working together in auctions of four natural gas leases on federal land in Colorado have agreed to pay $275,000 each to settle the claim. The case is the first federal challenge to an anti-competitive bidding agreement for mineral rights, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The complaint alleged that the two companies -- Gunnison Energy Corporation (GEC), with headquarters in Denver, and Texas-based SG Interests VII Ltd. (SGI) -- were separately developing natural gas resources in Western Colorado. In 2005, the ...
