DealLawyers.com Blog

Deal delays due to extended antitrust merger reviews were a hallmark of the Biden administration’s skeptical – and sometimes outright hostile – approach to M&A.  According to this recent McDermott Will newsletter, that’s changing, and the agencies are emphasizing the importance of getting out of the way of deals that don’t raise significant issues:

Consistent with the current, more business-friendly attitudes of the FTC and DOJ toward dealmaking, the two agencies also are making efforts to allow nonproblematic mergers to proceed more quickly. The FTC has brought back the practice of granting early termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) waiting period, a practice the FTC suspended under the Biden administration. FTC Commissioner Holyoak has stated that requests for early termination will help reduce the workload of FTC staff and help parties close transactions more quickly.

Since restarting the early termination program, the FTC has granted more than 100 early termination requests. Assistant Attorney General (Antitrust Division) Gail Slater has stated that the DOJ has been looking for other ways to speed up the merger review process, as well. FTC Chair Ferguson said that the FTC “must get out of the way quickly” when a merger would not violate antitrust laws, to avoid bogging down innovation and interfering with the free market. These statements stand in contrast with the approach of Biden administration enforcers, which was to try to slow down dealmaking generally.

– John Jenkins