Competition Matters

For the good of the antitrust bar and our entire profession, the BC Front Office encourages parties to give associates, counsel, and newer partners more opportunities to present to the Bureau and the Commission in party meetings. In return, we promise reasonable expectations based on attorneys’ level of experience.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was told to ignore the man behind the curtain. Some may argue that the same guidance applies to ancillary parts of a merger or joint venture agreement. These can include non-solicitation and non-compete provisions. Even when such provisions are ancillary to an otherwise legitimate business transaction, we will still make a determination that the restraints do not independently violate the antitrust laws by being overly broad.

Are you a fast-learning, tech-savvy professional driven to use your expertise to help ensure that competitive technological innovation benefits consumers? Then the FTC may have a unique opportunity for you to work in Washington, D.C. alongside antitrust attorneys and economists probing the competitive dynamics driving today’s technology-driven online ecosystem.

The wellness strategy of the moment is mindfulness: focusing on the present and being completely aware of your situation. Even in the corporate sphere, there are good reasons for anyone in governance to take a self-assessment. Am I living in the now, what is my position in the world, am I currently violating the per se prohibition on interlocking directorates under Section 8 of the Clayton Act?

Last week, Bureau of Competition staff published a report on filings received in fiscal year (FY) 2016 under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), the thirteenth such report since the MMA took effect in 2004.

On May 1, the Federal Trade Commission registered for the International Competition Network’s Framework for Competition Agency Procedures (CAP), making it a founding member of the ICN’s most recent initiative to promote fair and informed competition enforcement procedures around the world.

Designing effective merger remedy orders is one of the Commission’s most important tasks. An effective merger remedy prevents the merger from causing harm.

When Congress passed the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, it created minimum dollar thresholds to limit the burden of premerger reporting. In 2000, it amended the HSR statute to require the annual adjustment of these thresholds based on the change in gross national product. As a result, reportability under the Act changes from year to year as the statutory thresholds adjust. The PNO fields many questions about the upcoming adjustments to the HSR thresholds from parties whose transactions may take place around the time of the revisions.

The PNO routinely provides informal guidance on Hart-Scott-Rodino reporting obligations that arise when combining not-for-profit entities, typically in the context of hospital combinations. In the past, much of this guidance focused on whether the combination resulted in a change of "control" of the board of directors of one or more of the combining entities. This was because those seeking guidance described hospital combinations primarily in terms of formal board governance.