Competition Matters

This is National Consumer Protection Week, a week set aside every year to help consumers know their rights and make well-informed choices in the marketplace. Here at the FTC, we’re all about...

The newly released Remedy Study is the culmination of nearly two years of effort by FTC staff to look back at Commission merger orders from 2006 through 2012. We looked at 89 merger orders affecting...

With some exceptions, Section 8 of the Clayton Act prohibits the same individual from serving as an officer or director of two competing corporations. Like other portions of the forward-looking...

When submitting a Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) premerger notification filing to the FTC and DOJ, a filing party must complete the HSR Form. The HSR Form requires detailed information about the transaction...

On Monday, the FTC accepted for public comment a proposed consent order involving a consummated merger in the eye care industry. According to the complaint, Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ 2015 acquisition...

Looking for a new job can be stressful, whether you are a new worker applying for your first job or a highly trained professional seeking to advance in your career. The last thing a job-seeker should...

The Premerger Notification Office is often asked to give guidance on how to determine the value of a proposed merger or acquisition in light of the size of transaction test. The size of transaction...

The PNO handles Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Filings for well over a thousand transactions each year. Each transaction requires the acquiring person to pay an HSR filing fee, which must be...

Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act and Rules, determining whether a U.S. entity is a corporation or a non-corporate entity (like an LLC or LP) is relatively clear. For foreign entities, the answer...

For more than 15 years, one of the FTC’s top priorities has been to put an end to anticompetitive reverse-payment settlements between brand-name drug makers and their potential generic rivals. In our...

There is a basic but important difference between antitrust cases brought by the government and those brought by private parties: All plaintiffs, including government enforcers like the FTC, must...

Since 2004, brand-name and generic drug manufacturers have filed certain agreements with the FTC and DOJ as required by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (also known as...

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...

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...

Today, the Commission (with the help of our friends at the Justice Department) filed a proposed settlement in federal court to settle charges that three funds managed by Third Point violated the Hart...

One of the key functions of the Bureau of Competition is to analyze mergers. Obtaining information through Second Requests is an essential aspect of our review process for proposed acquisitions. Even...

Every day, the PNO receives many inquiries for interpretations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino statute and rules. Recently, several questions have related to transactions involving rental property, which...

The ability to appoint a monitor is an important tool in building a successful merger remedy. The boilerplate-style language FTC uses in merger orders when appointing a monitor belies the unique and...

Everywhere these days, folks are talking about big data. (Apparently, even machines are talking amongst themselves using big data in an ecosystem called the Internet of Things.) Last week, Chairwoman...