US & EU Competition Law—Merger Enforcement: 2017 Year In Review

2017 marked another busy year for competition authorities around the globe. While 2017 saw the transition to new leadership at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, both enforcers remained vigilant. In particular, the competition authorities demonstrated a continued willingness to challenge transactions and conduct deeper investigations of transactions. In the EU, the Commission in several cases took a keen interest in whether the transactions risked harming innovation competition; some of those reviews are still pending and innovation will likely remain a key area of interest going forward. The enclosed links provide two related reports highlighting recent trends in US and EU merger enforcement and summarizing formal actions taken by US authorities as well as a selection of noteworthy European Commission decisions in 2017.