October 2015

Calculating the value of stock under HSR rules

By: the Premerger Notification Staff, Bureau of Competition | Oct 27, 2015 2:05PM

The Hart-Scott-Rodino statute and rules contain a number of reporting thresholds for transactions subject to premerger notification filing with the FTC and DOJ. In this post, we are going to focus on how to value publicly traded stock in order to determine reportability under the various filing thresholds. Some of the most frequent questions we get involve how to value acquisitions of voting securities in 801.30 transactions, given the volatile nature of the stock market.

What are the HSR notification thresholds for voting securities?

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Doing good well

By: Michael Bloom, Bureau of Competition | Oct 20, 2015 3:38PM

Antitrust law seeks to promote efficiency and economic welfare. But companies may want to collaborate to advance other social objectives. I recently spoke at a program entitled “Antitrust Law and Corporate Social Responsibility,” hosted by the Council for International Business. The purpose of the program was to discuss whether and how companies can work together to achieve social welfare goals—such as environmental objectives, health and safety objectives, or labor objectives—without running afoul of the antitrust laws. I made two key points.

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The when and what of active supervision

By: Debbie Feinstein and Geoffrey Green, Bureau of Competition | Oct 14, 2015 12:28PM

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners violated the federal antitrust laws by preventing non-dentists from providing teeth whitening services in competition with the state’s licensed dentists. N.C. State Bd. of Dental Exam’rs v. FTC, 135 S. Ct. 1101 (2015). The Board had argued that, because it is a state agency, it is exempt from liability under the federal antitrust laws.

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