February 3, 2022
Antitrust: Merger Investigations Killed Greater Percentage of Deals in 2021
According to the latest edition of Dechert’s merger investigation timing tracker, while the number of deals subject to significant investigations by the DOJ & FTC last year fell slightly below Trump administration averages, those investigations killed a higher percentage of deals than in years past:
Of note, the combined number of transactions that ended in either a complaint or an abandoned transaction in 2021 matched 2020. With fewer significant investigations concluding in 2021 than 2020, however, the 10 investigations that ended in a complaint or an abandoned transaction in 2021 represented 37 percent of all significant investigations – the highest proportion observed since DAMITT first launched in 2011. As shown below, deals abandoned without a complaint represented 40 percent of these transactions that did not result in a consent decree, the highest proportion since 2014.
Dechert’s report says that these outcomes indicate that the agencies very public skepticism of merger remedies is reducing the number of deals that end in consent decrees, and that the increasing willingness to challenge deals highlights the importance of the language of the antitrust provisions contained in merger agreements.
– John Jenkins