Tag: Bureau of Competition

The Federal Trade Commission authorized an action to block Illumina Inc.’s proposed $1.2 billion acquisition of Pacific Biosciences of California, alleging in an administrative complaint that Illumina is seeking to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in the U.S. market for next-generation DNA sequencing systems by extinguishing PacBio as a nascent competitive threat. The Commission vote to issue the administrative complaint and to authorize staff to seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction was 5-0. On Jan. 2, 2020, the parties abandoned the transaction.

Investment advisor Third Point LLC and three funds that it controls have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the funds violated the premerger notification and waiting period requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, or HSR Act, after they acquired the voting securities of DowDuPont Inc. According to the complaint, on Aug. 31, 2017, the shares of Dow Inc. held by the three Third Point funds – Third Point Partners Qualified L.P., Third Point Ultra, Ltd., and Third Point Offshore Fund Ltd. – converted to shares of the newly formed DowDuPont Inc. following the merger of Dow Inc. and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The three funds have agreed to collectively pay $609,810 in civil penalties, and they, together with Third Point LLC, will be barred from committing future violations of the HSR Act in connection with corporate consolidations.