The US FTC and DOJ intensify antitrust scrutiny and step up enforcement of antitrust prohibitions

The federal government continues to aggressively pursue its antitrust agenda, seeking to block several headline deals, rejecting remedy offers, increasing filing fees for the largest deals and setting out new guidelines Merger filings in the US remain above historical averages and enforcement continues to be aggressive. The pace of merger filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act—which requires detailed filings about larger mergers and acquisitions to be provided to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) before they occur—fell in 2022, but still surpassed historic levels. According to White & Case's Global Antitrust Merger StatPak, HSR filings in the first half of 2022 were 47 percent above the ten-year trailing average. [1]