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Earlier this month, on the eve of the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division rolled out significant updates to its Leniency Program, most readily discernible through an augmented, plain-language set of 82 Frequently Asked Questions, as well as the Division’s updated Leniency Policies and Procedures and Model Corporate Conditional Leniency Letter.
Continue Reading Updates to DOJ Leniency Policy Further Complicate Decisions to Seek Antitrust Immunity; Some Suggestions from the Field

Many have been wondering when FTC and DOJ will resume granting early termination of the HSR waiting period in deals that present no anticompetitive concerns.  Early termination does not appear to be coming back anytime soon.
Continue Reading FTC, Under Pressure from “Tidal Wave” of HSR Filings, To Begin Issuing Close-At-Your-Own-Risk Letters

On June 22, 2020, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, head of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, and Jay Clayton, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) concerning “Cooperation with Respect to Promoting Competitive Conditions in the Securities Industry.” …
Continue Reading SEC and DOJ Adopt Memorandum of Understanding to Formalize Interagency Cooperation in the Securities Industry

This post has been updated as of March 24, 2020.

On Monday, March 23, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) were preparing to announce a streamlined procedure through which companies seeking to collaborate on a response to the coronavirus pandemic may obtain an expedited review and approval of their contemplated venture.  (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/u-s-to-speed-antitrust-reviews-for-firms-teaming-up-on-virus).  Specifically, the DOJ and FTC are expected to jointly commit to processing and completing reviews of coronavirus-targeted collaborations in one week or less.  The agencies may roll out the details as early as Monday.
Continue Reading U.S. Antitrust Agencies to Streamline Review for COVID-19 Collaborations (UPDATED)

On June 9, 2016, the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (“DoJ”) filed a complaint against the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, d/b/a Carolinas Health Care System (“CHS”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. (United States of America and State of North Carolina v. Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority). The complaint accuses CHS of using “contract restrictions that prohibit commercial health insurers in the Charlotte area from offering patients financial benefits to use less expensive healthcare services offered by CHS’s competitors.” (Complaint, Preamble) In effect, the complaint is attacking a type of widely used contracting provision in which acute care hospital systems seek to prohibit insurance company payors from using “steering” restrictions, which would otherwise be used to steer their insured patients to lower cost healthcare providers, including lower-cost hospitals, in exchange for lower premiums in so-called “narrow network” insurance plans. The complaint then alleges that CHS has an approximately 50% share of the market for acute inpatient hospital care in the Charlotte metropolitan area, allegedly conferring market power on CHS.
Continue Reading U.S. Department of Justice Sues North Carolina Hospital System for Insisting on Anti-Steering Provisions in Insurance Reimbursement Contracts