On October 31, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is sued an order enjoining H&R Block, Inc.’s acquisition of a rival tax preparation software firm TaxACT. Last week, the court’s redacted memorandum opinion supporting the injunction became available. [1] The opinion contains a thorough, step-by-step evaluation of the merger, with analysis that bolsters the Department of Justice/Federal Trade Commission 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines (Merger Guidelines) and its general methodology to challenging mergers. [2] Most significantly, the court: (1) adopted the DOJ’s narrow relevant market, rejecting the defendants’ expert studies and relying on the defendants’ internal documents that identified their principal competitors; (2) rejected defendants’ arguments that
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The US District Court for the District of Columbia grants DoJ request to enjoin a merger between two digital do-it-yourself tax preparation software providers (H&R Block / TaxAct)
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