FTC, DOJ Release Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report

The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and the Department of Justice ("DOJ") released the Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report for fiscal year 2016. The report includes data on the HSR Premerger Notification Program, which supplies the FTC and DOJ with information concerning large impending mergers.

Information received via the Premerger Notification Program is often used as the basis for enforcement actions brought by the FTC and DOJ in order to prevent "potential harm from anticompetitive mergers." The report shares, among other information, the following facts for FY 2016:

• 1,832 transactions were reported to the DOJ, representing a 1.7% increase over FY 2015.
• The FTC brought 22 merger enforcement actions. 16 resulted in consent orders, one was abandoned or restructured due to antitrust concerns, and in the remaining five matters, the FTC initiated administrative or federal court litigation, eventually succeeding in blocking or causing the parties to abandon the