DOJ Announces Merger Review Amendments To Streamline Second Requests

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently unveiled several amendments to its Merger Review Process Initiative. These amendments are part of the DOJ’s effort to reduce the time and cost of merger investigations. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also introduced similar merger review process reforms earlier in 2006. These reforms, which address the process for administering "second requests" under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Premerger Notification Act, represent significant efforts by the agencies to streamline the second request process.

These reforms formalize many of the practices that DOJ staff has been offering merging parties over the last few years, but they also provide options that give the parties more control over the timing of the review of their transactions. The most important of the changes to the DOJ second request procedures include: limiting the number of custodians whose files need to be searched for documents to approximately 30 people per party; decreasing the