Biden's Antitrust Gamble

Financial pressures on rural and critical access hospitals are well documented. Losses due to low reimbursements by private insurers, significant volumes of Medicare...

Plaintiffs' experts in antitrust class actions often employ a two-step econometric method to demonstrate common impact across class members. New research reveals fundamental flaws in this widely-used approach, showing how it systematically produces false positives and identifies class-wide impact even when no actual harm occurred.

The FTC secured major enforcement wins including blocking Henkel's $725 million Liquid Nails acquisition and unwinding Zillow-Redfin's market-exit deal, while also proposing new personalized pricing policies and finalizing penalties for deceptive AI advertising claims. What do these recent actions signal about the agency's enforcement priorities and regulatory approach?

California's legislative branch has sent Assembly Bill 1776, known as the COMPETE Act, to Governor Gavin Newsom for signature, marking a significant expansion of the state's antitrust enforcement capabilities. If enacted, this legislation would empower California's Attorney General to challenge single-firm monopolistic conduct under the Cartwright Act...

The Department of Justice announced a landmark $250 million settlement with KKR & Co. for allegedly submitting deficient Hart-Scott-Rodino Act notification forms across at least 16 transactions. This unprecedented penalty, the largest ever for HSR violations, raises critical questions about merger notification compliance obligations and the consequences of systemic noncompliance with federal antitrust review requirements.

On August 19, a jury in Oklahoma found one company and two individuals—the company’s vice president and its estimator—guilty of price fixing and bid rigging.

The Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of IonQ's acquisition of SkyWater Technology after the Commission's two sitting members divided over whether the transaction warranted a negotiated behavioral consent order. These detailed statements reveal how each Commissioner analyzes vertical transactions and their claimed benefits, offering critical insights for parties planning vertical transactions in defense and national-security sectors.

Private equity firm KKR has agreed to pay a record-breaking $250 million civil penalty to settle allegations of systematic violations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act across at least 16 transactions. Federal antitrust agencies are demonstrating unprecedented scrutiny of premerger compliance requirements, pursuing significant penalties even when underlying transactions themselves face no competitive concerns.

State regulation of algorithmic pricing is accelerating across the United States, with California, Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey enacting new restrictions while New York lawmakers advance legislation that would expand existing disclosure requirements. The key distinction lies in the data driving the price: some states restrict tools using competitor data to address antitrust concerns, while others target consumer-specific pricing based on personal data to address unfairness and deception. These deve

State attorneys general in Florida and Louisiana have filed lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers alleging collusion and price-fixing of reimbursement rates paid to retail and independent pharmacies. These cases represent a growing trend of states pursuing antitrust enforcement actions against PBMs for allegedly coordinating to suppress pharmacy reimbursements.

Financial pressures on rural and critical access hospitals are well documented. Losses due to low reimbursements by private insurers, significant volumes of Medicare...

On August 19, a jury in Oklahoma found one company and two individuals—the company’s vice president and its estimator—guilty of price fixing and bid rigging.

The Department of Justice has secured a proposed $250 million settlement with KKR & Co. Inc. for alleged Hart-Scott-Rodino Act violations spanning at least 16 transactions in 2021 and 2022. This unprecedented penalty, more than twenty times the previous record, marks a dramatic escalation in HSR enforcement and raises critical questions about filing compliance standards across the investment industry.

On August 7, 2026, the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered Verisk Analytics, Inc. to move forward with its purportedly terminated $2.35 billion proposed acquisition of AccuLynx.com.

The FTC's record-setting $12 million settlement with Edwards Lifesciences and Genesis MedTech raises critical questions about deal structuring and Hart-Scott-Rodino Act compliance. When does strategic transaction design cross the line into intentional avoidance of premerger notification requirements? Leading antitrust practitioners examine the implications of this landmark enforcement action for deal teams navigating transactions near HSR thresholds.

During the second Trump Administration, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed 21 statements of interest (https://bit.ly/4zgKVz2). These filings can be good predictors of future enforcement activity.

The Third Circuit (Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars Entertainment, Inc.) has now joined the Ninth Circuit (Gibson v. Cendyn Group, LLC) in evaluating dismissal of claims by casino hotel guests...

Competition law has evolved from a specialized legal domain into a critical enterprise risk that demands board-level attention. How can corporate directors effectively oversee antitrust compliance and protect their companies from regulatory exposure in an era of heightened enforcement?

The Trump administration's DOJ Antitrust Division has introduced a formalized "Expedited Consideration" process for merger reviews, offering a streamlined alternative to full Second Request investigations. This new timing agreement establishes a middle route that focuses initially on the most competitively significant aspects of deals, potentially reducing the months-long compliance burden and multi-million dollar costs traditionally associated with comprehensive merger reviews.

The Federal Trade Commission's landmark settlement with Caremark fundamentally restructures how one of America's three largest prescription drug benefit managers operates, targeting allegedly anticompetitive practices that artificially inflated medication costs. The agreement mandates sweeping reforms to formulary design, rebate strategies, and fee structures that the FTC claims have cost patients billions while enriching PBMs as pharmaceutical supply chain gatekeepers.