Articles Posted in FTC Antitrust Highlights

On August 13, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order revoking Executive Order 14036, the Biden-Harris administration’s 2021 directive aimed at promoting competition in the American economy. This move signals a shift in federal competition policy, drawing praise from business groups and criticism from consumer advocates. FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson hailed the decision…

If your company is filing a premerger notification form with the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, do not forget to simultaneously file with relevant states that have enacted premerger notification laws. The first two states to enact these laws are Washington and Colorado. Washington Premerger Notification Law As of July 27, 2025, federal…

Introduction Under the Biden administration, U.S. antitrust agencies, particularly the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), took a hardline stance against negotiated merger remedies. Instead of settling, they often challenged mergers outright or allowed deals to close without formal conditions, expressing doubts about the effectiveness of remedies like structural…

7 Eleven and Speedway  announced the transaction in August 2020.  The FTC issued Second Requests for information to the parties and investigated the transaction because it raised a number of competitive concerns in various local geographic markets.  The parties negotiated a divestiture of approximately 300 stores with the FTC staff to remedy the antitrust concerns. …

On May 25, 2021, the D.C. Office of the Attorney General (DC AG) filed an antitrust complaint against Amazon.com, Inc. in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The complaint accuses the company of monopolization and illegal restraints of trade. Interestingly, the complaint does not include allegations of federal antitrust violations. The complaint alleges…

On March 18, 2021, the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust subcommittee had a hearing labeled “Reviving Competition, Part 3: Strengthening the Laws to Address Monopoly Power”. The hearing began with opening remarks from Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), who spoke about the limitations in current antitrust laws on the topic of market dominance, and remarks from Representative…

Georgetown Law tech law and policy experts converged together on Friday, January 29, 2021, to discuss wide-ranged topics relating to technology, speech, and regulations in a democratic society. David Vladeck, Erin Carroll, Hillary Brill, and Anupam Chander were the representative speakers on this discussion streamed live over Facebook. The discussion began with revisiting the tragic…

On June 26, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) entered into a settlement agreement that allowed Eldorado Resorts, Inc. (“Eldorado”) to acquire Caesars Entertainment Corporation (“Caesars”) for $17.3 billion. Background Eldorado agreed to acquire Caesars for $17.3 billion on June 24, 2019. Eldorado is a provider of casino entertainment and hospitality services, operating 23 casino…

On May 5, 2020, the FTC approved AbbVie Inc.’s (“AbbVie”) $63 billion acquisition of Allergan plc (“Allergan”) on the condition that the merging parties divest three minor products.  The consent agreement was approved by a 3-2 party line vote. The FTC has a long history of scrutinizing transactions in the pharmaceutical industry, but Commissioners’ statements demonstrate that they are not on…

On February 18, 2020, a group of unions, consumer groups, and public interest organizations filed a letter with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) raising concerns that the divestiture of Allergan plc’s (“Allergan”) pipeline drug, brazikumab, will not succeed unless the FTC addresses AbbVie’s use of rebate walls. Consumer Group Concerns Regarding Rebate Walls and…