Tag: Competition

Discount retailers Dollar Tree, Inc. and Family Dollar Stores, Inc. agreed to sell 330 Family Dollar stores to a private equity firm, Sycamore Partners, to settle FTC charges that Dollar Tree’s proposed $9.2 billion acquisition of Family Dollar would likely be anticompetitive. Their stores compete head-to-head in terms of price, product assortment, and quality, as well as location and customer service in local markets nationwide. The FTC identified 330 stores in local markets from 35 states where competition would be lost if the acquisition went forward as proposed. Without a remedy, according to the FTC, the acquisition is likely to lessen competition by eliminating direct competition between Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, and increasing the likelihood that Dollar Tree will unilaterally exercise market power.

Hedge fund founder Ahmet H. Okumus has agreed to pay $180,000 in civil penalties to resolve charges that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to report his purchases of voting securities in the internet services company Web.com Group Inc. The FTC alleged that Okumus violated the HSR Act by exceeding the filing threshold and failing to file as required when he bought shares of Web.com through his hedge fund, Okumus Opportunistic Value Fund, Ltd. According to the complaint, he was in violation of the HSR Act from June 27, 2016, when he purchased the shares, to July 14, 2016, when he sold enough shares so that he did not exceed the threshold. Although the Commission found his HSR violation to be inadvertent, it determined to seek penalties because, as noted in the complaint, this was Okumus’s second HSR violation in two years regarding Web.com.

Entrepreneur Mitchell P. Rales agreed to pay $720,000 in civil penalties to resolve charges that he violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to report his purchases of shares in two industrial companies, Colfax Corporation and Danaher Corporation.  The FTC alleged that Rales violated the HSR Act by failing to file as required when his wife purchased shares in Colfax in 2011. The shares, which are attributed to Rales under the applicable HSR Rules, were above the filing threshold. According to the complaint, Rales was in violation of the HSR Act from 2011, when the shares were purchased, to 2016, when he made a corrective filing and observed the waiting period. The complaint also alleged that in 2008, Rales violated the HSR Act by buying shares of Danaher that exceeded the filing threshold and failing to file. Rales was in violation of the HSR Act between 2008, when he bought the shares, and 2016, when he made a corrective filing and observed the waiting period. Although Rales contended that the violations were inadvertent, the Commission determined to seek penalties because, as noted in the complaint, Rales had paid civil penalties to settle an earlier HSR enforcement action brought by the Department of Justice in 1991.