The American Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Section recently held its annual Spring Meeting in Washington, DC, featuring updates from federal, state, and international antitrust enforcers and in-depth commentary on leading antitrust issues facing the business community today. This post recaps key takeaways from the first portion of the Spring Meeting.
CIVIL ENFORCEMENT AND MERGER REVIEW: US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ) PRIORITIES
Aggressive Enforcement by Any Other Name: DOJ Antitrust Division Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hetal Doshi characterized DOJ’s enforcement posture as “not aggressive enforcement, just enforcement,” but nevertheless opined that the Department’s past practice of erring on the side of under-enforcement has “ill-served” the public.
Whole-of-Government Means Whole-of-Government: The Division’s Deputy Assistant Attorneys General Maggie Goodlander and Michael Kades highlighted that various federal statutes other than the antitrust laws confer the power to act to preserve competition. They emphasized DOJ’s intent to pursue sweeping enforcement priorities to execute President Biden’s recent executive order calling for a whole-of-government approach to protecting competition, including by working in conjunction with other federal agencies like the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Agriculture.
Enforcement Priorities Include Technical Violations of HSR Act, Spoliation, Gun-Jumping: Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goodlander emphasized DOJ’s intent to pursue vigorously violations of the HSR Act, including failures to make required premerger notification filings, failures to provide all Item 4 documents, and “gun-jumping” caused by concerted action prior to the satisfaction of the HSR Act’s waiting period. Goodlander also commented on DOJ’s intent to scrutinize merging parties’ conduct during the due diligence phase to investigate whether parties are using due diligence to conceal and accomplish anticompetitive conduct. Other DOJ officials further emphasized that DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are working to ensure that the agencies’ investigations are not harmed by the use of third-party ephemeral communication platforms and to penalize spoliation of evidence contained in such messaging applications.
Hostility Toward Freely Granted Divestitures in Merger Investigations: Deputy Assistant Attorneys General Doshi and Andrew Forman conveyed the high bar merging parties face when they offer structural or behavioral remedies, including divestitures, to resolve or head off a DOJ challenge to a merger or acquisition. Doshi and Forman pointed to instances where divestitures and/or carveouts offered in merger transactions have failed and “the American people bear the risk” of anticompetitive harms and asserted that “the idea that a divestiture can cure the feared antitrust issues can’t rest on our hopes of what might happen in the future after the deal and divestiture closes.”
Consent Decrees Face Much Stricter Scrutiny: Deputy Assistant Attorneys General Forman, Goodlander, and Kades emphasized the “exacting standard” that must be applied when DOJ is considering entering into a consent decree to resolve a merger challenge. According to the Department officials, the antitrust laws prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition, which means that for a consent decree to resolve antitrust concerns, it must eliminate the possibility that a merger could cause harm—an “extremely high bar.”
Updated Merger Guidelines to Focus on Relevant [...]
Seven directors resigned from corporate boards following promises of enforcement of Clayton Act Section 8 (15 U.S.C. § 19) by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Antitrust Division (the Division), the Division announced Wednesday.
The directors served on the boards of corporations that the DOJ asserted competed in a variety of sectors, including information technology, software, and manufacturing.
WHAT’S THE LEGAL CONCERN
Section 8 prohibits “interlocking directorates” (per se violation), which occur when the same individual serves simultaneously as an officer or director of two competing companies (direct interlocks) or when different individuals on boards of competing companies act on behalf of and at the direction of a single firm (indirect interlocks through deputization). In its press release, the DOJ noted that some of the interlocks arose because a private equity firm appointed different personnel to the boards of competing companies.
The goal of Section 8 and the DOJ action is to decrease potential opportunities for the exchange of sensitive information between competitors and the risk of anticompetitive conduct more generally.
Exemptions might apply. There are de minimis exemptions if a) the competing sales are less than $4.1 million (threshold updated annually); b) the competing sales of either corporation represent less than 2% of its total sales; or c) the competing sales of each corporation are less than 4% of its total sales. A careful analysis (similar to that done in merger analysis) is necessary to determine whether an exemption might apply.
Not just corporations? While the plain language of Section 8 refers to interlocks involving “corporations,” the DOJ has stated its view that Section 8 also covers interlocks between non-corporate entities, such as LLCs (this is an open area of law).
Not just the same person? While the plain language of Section 8 states that it applies when the same “person” sits on the board or acts as an officer of two competitors, the DOJ interprets Section 8 broadly to mean that two different individuals appointed by a common entity cannot serve on boards of competitors because the entity is a “person” and is serving on the boards through its designees.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS
Interlocks can create significant antitrust risk. While the DOJ’s concerns with interlocks seem to be assuaged with the quick removal of the Corporate Director identified, interlocks have served as the factual underpinning for antitrust conspiracy claims. Therefore, companies should be proactive in eliminating problematic interlocks, as the interlock combined with parallel action by competitors in an industry could serve as the factual basis for long and costly conspiracy investigations or litigation and could support complaint allegations to defeat a Twombly-based motion to dismiss.
ANTICIPATE CONTINUED ENFORCEMENT
While the resignations are not novel, they represent a major amplification of corporate responses to what Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter has described as “an extensive review of interlocking directorates across the entire economy” and [...]
The FTC and DOJ proposed new Hart–Scott–Rodino (HSR) rules that, if issued in final form, will significantly change HSR practice for Private Equity (PE) companies.
The Proposed Rules are subject to comment for 60 days after they are published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and will not go into effect until after that comment period, when they could be issued as proposed, modified, or simply not issued.
Under the current rules, HSR focuses on the Ultimate Parent Entity (UPE). For LLCs and partnerships, that means that each fund in a family is normally its own UPE. Other funds managed by the PE sponsor are deemed “associates” of the UPE, but are not part of the UPE or “Person” making the filing. Only limited information needs to be provided about “associates,” and only if the associate operates in a similar field to the target company. The proposed rules will treat all funds and portfolio companies, as well as the PE sponsor, as part of the same “Person” for purposes of determining the filing requirements, and also for completing the HSR form.
There is also a proposed exemption for acquisitions of less than 10% of an issuer, regardless of investment intent, if the acquiring person is not in a competitive relationship with the target. This might reduce filing obligations for companies like hedge funds that might take actions that disqualify themselves from the current investment only exemption.
What This Means:
The Proposed Rules change the calculus on whether filings may be required and what needs to be reported if a filing is required as “Associates” would now be deemed part of the same “Person” for the purposes of the HSR Act. Filings are evaluated based on what an “Acquiring Person” will hold. This is not a change, but changing who is deemed to be in the “Person” could affect transactions in a number of ways. Below are some examples of the potential impact.
More transactions are likely to require filings
For example, if a sponsor manages Fund 1 and Fund 2 and the sponsor arranges a transaction for Fund 1 to acquire USD $80 million of target stock, Fund 2 to acquire $60 million, and co-investors to acquire USD $20 million, currently no filing would be required, while under the Proposed Rules a filing would be required.
Currently, no HSR filing is required because Fund 1 is its own “Person” and its acquisition does not exceed the transaction filing threshold (USD $94 million). The same would be true for Fund 2’s acquisition of the USD $60 million—also below the threshold.
Under the Proposed Rules, an HSR filing would be required because the “Person” would include the sponsor, Fund 1 and Fund 2 (altogether). The “Person” would be acquiring USD $140 million in stock and that acquisition would exceed the USD $94 million size of transaction filing threshold.
Another scenario not currently requiring a filing, but would [...]
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