President-elect Donald Trump has called for a dramatic increase in defense spending including purchases of new ships and warplanes as well as the addition of tens of thousands of new troops. This increase in spending generally bodes well for the aerospace and defense industry and potentially signals a new era of growth for companies in this space. This article examines how M&A transactions are likely to be reviewed in a Trump administration, with particular focus on “vertical” transactions.
For the first time ever, on 8 November 2016 the French Competition Authority (FCA) sanctioned companies for implementing a transaction that had been notified to the FCA but not yet received a clearance decision, behaviour commonly known as “gun-jumping”. (more…)
On October 31, 2016, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit handed another important victory to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the State of Illinois in a hospital merger case in Chicago, Illinois. This decision follows closely on the heels of the FTC’s victory earlier this year in FTC v. Penn State Hershey before the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and, like that prior case, is a strong endorsement for the FTC’s analytical approach to hospital mergers. (more…)
Divestments often constitute the most appropriate remedy to resolve antitrust concerns in the context of merger control. However, behavioural commitments may also have the same commercial effects as a divestment. This was illustrated in a merger control case handled by the United Kingdom Competition Market Authority (the ‘CMA’) in the specialist magazines sector. Another feature of this case pertains to the market definition found by the CMA in this case. (more…)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently reversed its position on how to calculate the size-of-transaction for HSR purposes in connection with leveraged buyouts (LBOs). This change in position may result in more reportable transactions.
As detailed here, the FTC’s position, effective immediately, is that any new debt used to finance an LBO transaction, counts toward the size of transaction. Previously, whether or not new debt used to finance an LBO transaction was included in the size of transaction turned on whether the buyer or the target company incurred, provided, or guaranteed the debt.
This does not change the treatment of payment of third-party debt out of transaction consideration:
In equity transactions, payment of third-party debt that is deducted from the consideration ultimately paid by the buyer to seller is not included in the size of transaction (e.g., $100 million purchase price of which $30 million goes to pay off third party debt = $70 million transaction for HSR purposes).
In asset acquisitions, assumption of liabilities continues to be additive to the purchase price (e.g., $50 purchase price plus $30 million in assumed liabilities = $80 million transaction for HSR purposes).
In pharmaceutical transactions involving generic products, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has typically focused on narrow antitrust theories of harm and applied a narrow product market analysis often limited to a treatment for a particular indication (and sometimes to a specific mechanism of action). In these transactions, the FTC has consistently required fixes for generic overlaps when the transaction (1) reduces the number of significant generic competitors in a particular product market to three or fewer or (2) involves the combination of a branded pharmaceutical product with a “first-to-file” generic for the same product for which there are no other generics yet on the market. Using this narrow methodology, pharmaceutical transactions involving generics that required a fix could move through the FTC review process very quickly and generally achieve clearance in approximately six months from filing.
While antitrust policy and enforcement has not received much attention from Donald Trump on the campaign trail, Mr. Trump has made a few notable statements regarding antitrust law that provide hints as to potential antitrust enforcement priorities for a Trump administration. Mr. Trump’s history as both a plaintiff and defendant in antitrust litigation is also notable and unprecedented.
In his 2011 book Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, Mr. Trump addressed the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) specifically in the context of antitrust law. Under the heading “Sue OPEC” Mr. Trump wrote:
We can start by suing OPEC for violating antitrust laws. Currently, bringing a lawsuit against OPEC is difficult. . . . The way to fix this is to make sure that Congress passes and the president signs the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act” (NOPEC) (S.394), which will amend the Sherman Antitrust Act and make it illegal for any foreign governments to act collectively to limit production or set prices. If we get it passed, the bill would clear the way for the United States to sue member nations of OPEC for price-fixing and anti-competitive behavior. . . . Imagine how much money the average American would save if we busted the OPEC cartel. (more…)
On Monday, October 3, 2016, Hillary Clinton issued a statementon her website titled “Hillary Clinton’s Vision for an Economy Where our Businesses, our Workers, and Our Consumers Grow and Prosper Together.”
Unlike President Barack Obama, former Secretary Clinton had not issued a clear policy statement on her antitrust position before Monday. She had, however, penned one short op-ed piece for Quartz, and had made some general statements on the campaign trail regarding the problems of industry consolidation. It was unclear from these prior statements whether a Clinton administration would mean any change in the current state of affairs at Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The current administration has challenged a higher percentage of mergers than any administration since before Reagan’s, but it has not significantly altered the law regarding what mergers are considered actionable.
In her Quartz op-ed, Secretary Clinton stated that “we need to fix [the system],” and decried the concentrated markets in the pharmaceutical, airline and telecommunications industries. But Secretary Clinton gave only two concrete examples of how she would “take on the fight” against “large corporations.” (more…)
On September 27, 2016, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed an important victory to the Federal Trade Commission and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a closely watched hospital merger case. The decision provides clear guidance on the appropriate tests for determining geographic markets in hospital merger cases, while also suggesting that efficiencies claimed in many hospital transactions may face increased scrutiny in future cases.
Financial regulatory authorities such as the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the French Autorité des marchésfinanciers frequently impose on companies that are listed on a stock exchange the obligation to disclose key information to investors to help them make informed investment decisions.
The difficulties for companies lie principally in the nature of the information to be disclosed, the timing of the disclosure, and the balance of the obligation towards financial regulatory authorities on one hand, and competition authorities on the other.
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